By CLINT CHAN TACK Saturday, September 26 2009

ENERGY MINISTER Conrad Enill yesterday revealed that the new property tax system which Government plans to implement next year will only add $72 million in revenues to the country’s coffers.

Enill made this disclosure as he defended both the controversial tax and Government’s management of the economy during the budget debate in the Senate. The minister said the estimates contained in the 2009 Review of the Economy document showed Government only collected $85 million in revenue from land and building taxes in 2004. “On the basis of the new proposal that is being put forward, we expect to collect $72 million and I just want to put that on the record. There is no $1 billion activity that is taking place. The fact of the matter is that there is not an intention to use this. In fact, this is a revenue reduction measure more than a revenue raising measure,” Enill stated. On Government’s management of the economy, Enill said the real accounting is contained in the budget documents which are brought to Parliament annually and “are available for everyone to see.”

“Every single cent that was either spent up, down, around, underneath is in fact recorded there,” he said. Noting that the economy has grown from 2000 to this year, the minister said Government received $37 billion in revenues this year but will in fact be spending $46 billion this year.

He explained that the $46 billion consists of $6.8 billion, wages and salaries; goods and services, $6 billion; $3.9 billion, interest payments; $19.8 billion, subsidies and transfers and capital expenditure, $4 billion (Public Sector Investment Programme) and $5 billion (Infrastructure Development Fund. “In a real sense therefore that is how we propose to spend the rev that we have to maintain the levels of activity in this society on the basis of our particular objectives,” Enill declared. Focusing on the $19.8 billion allocation for subsidies and transfers, the minister said this is how Government supports educational institutions such as the University of the West Indies, maintains the petroleum subsidy and grants for vulnerable persons in the society. Enill said this was how Government planned to spend this $46 billion in the new fiscal year “in circumstances where the rest of the world is facing challenges.”