Penalising defaulters for non-payment of CET

Jun 20, 2009 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Now that Guyana has done the honourable thing and admitted that it did break the law as it pertains to the waiver of the Common External Tariff (CET) on cement and will end up paying a considerable amount to Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL), I hope that the other member states of Caricom will wake up and stop the illegal activities of not paying the CET on rice.
The Caribbean Rice Association (CRA) along with the Guyanese administration worked very hard to set up the Caricom Monitoring Mechanism for rice which tells one how much rice comes into the Region and whether the relevant duties or taxes are paid.
If one is to investigate these numbers, one will find that many member states do not pay the CET although no waiver was granted, especially St Vincent.
When one asks at COTED what will happen next, the answer invariably is nothing, since they don’t have the authority to prosecute these defaulters.
But with the birth of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and TCL having won this case resulting in Guyana having to pay out sums of money, I recommend that the administration now look at and take these defaulters to the CCJ and recover some money, for loss of business and damage to the rice industry.
Beni Sankar

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