Tattered State.....Of Affairs? - Vernon Derby

Is The Jamaican Economy in Serious Trouble?

Is the #Jamaican  #economy in more serious trouble than we are aware of? Unconfirmed reports are that reagents are not available for the processing blood and medical equipment in some hospitals are sitting there waiting to be serviced.  Mrs. Jean Anderson-Seaga called the programme this week stating that she was unable to get blood for her husband who was on dying. That audit report of the public health sector could shred some light on this.

Free Education?

Education is free but principals are charging auxillary fees and the Education Minister is saying do not refuse to admit students who are unable to pay these fees.

Paying Our Bills

Recently, another major government institution was not able to offer certain services because insiders said that providers of services to that institution were demanding that outstanding bills be paid. Reports are that utility bills are outstanding and pension payments are being be made late. Can you imagine if the JPS was allowed to charge the government interest on outstanding bills.

General Elections

It's clear that funds are not even there for the next election campaign. I believe that there will be no massive street meetings and no excessive media campaign. No more Olint and no more Cash Plus???

Suicide!

I am getting calls from persons who feel like committing suicide because they are not coping. Why even the police are getting involved in crime? Quite a number of persons are living on our streets. These are serious signs which cannot be ignored.

Waste Not!

It means therefore that we cannot waste what we have because tougher days could be ahead. Remember that, willful waste make woeful wants.

Taxation - David Trottman

This is the usual modus-operandi for the tax them to death “blood out of stone” PNP Government.  Like GCT this tax approach is flawed.  Kill the “sitting ducks” and forget the rest.  However, unlike GCT this tax will not have to be absorbed as an input cost but as PwC pointed out will have serious cash flow consequences for the service providers. 

 

By way of illustration, consider the GCT business environment as a huge tree with a trunk, several major branches and a vast expanse of minor branches and foliage out to its extremities.  The way GCT is supposed to work, it is the “foliage” (end-consumer) that should ultimately be left hugging-up the GCT.  However, because the GCT system is an “open loop” and there is no way to audit out to the extremities, the folk in the trunk and big branches (manufacturers; major distributors and similar value-adding elements) become sitting ducks for the tax them to death PNP Government.  Although GCT in many cases is unrecoverable, and has to be treated as an input cost by the productive sector, make no mistake, the end-consumer ultimately still bears the cost in higher prices; the country however suffers in terms of competitiveness in a global economy.

 

The real news with GCT is that the “open loop flaw” and the “law of diminishing returns” combine to limit its usefulness to squeeze additional blood out of that stone, hence the desperation to find a few more sitting ducks like the motorists, property owners, JPS and telecoms customers and financial services providers with this ill advised thin edge of the wedge withholding tax.

 

The gas tax and other burdens on the transport sector have already forced personal mobility to the “survival trip rate” with damaging consequences for the economy.  Is anybody tracking transport demand which is a “leading indicator” for where an economy is heading.  Ka-BOOM Nicodemus!!!