The Guyana Revenue Authority is a ruthless exploiter of poor people

Dec 07, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I turned up early Saturday morning, at the receiving section of the GPO parcel department to collect a tiny packet, a really tiny packet of medicine containing four fluid ounces of an acne treatment for my daughter. I handed in my slip and waited.
Michael Carrington of the Alliance for Change was in his shoe-repair booth, so he called me over. After finishing my talk with Carrington, this gentleman came up to me with sorrow in his eyes. His relatives abroad changed their drapes for the Christmas season and sent the old ones for him. The man was confused. One of the GRA officer stationed at the GPO’s parcel section charged him $16,000 in duty.
This was an unconscionable act. The man told me he doesn’t have even six thousand dollars. This was a poor guy who came from the country-side to collect the little things his relative abroad sent for him. But the point is that that item should not have carried duties. I intervened. They changed it to $2000 then took out their spite on me.
When it was my turn, for tubes of acne treatment, with each tube containing one fluid ounce, I repeat, one fluid ounce, they charged me $5000. This lady, probably annoyed that I quarreled over the imposition they put on that helpless victim, became arrogant. She said she knows that the cost of the acne treatment is $20,000 in Guyana.
Which store in Guyana sells a tube of acne treatment of one fluid ounce for $5000? At that rate, only the politicians who steal the nation’s money can buy that. That store will go out of business the next day.
It was clear to me that she was being unreasonable. I refused to pay the $5000. There is a shortage of this cream so I asked my cousin to post it for me. In Guyana, a tube cost $1200. This Customs officer told me that I was being disruptive. I refused to listen to him because he had no moral authority to talk to me given his appearance.
This was an office of the Guyana Revenue Authority and this man had a pair of half-cut trousers, shirt out of his pants buttoned to the waist and a huge gold chain ten times the size the one Kemar Roach in wearing on the field of play in Australia at the moment. I didn’t want to hear from him. I was not interested in listening to him.
This is the third time I disagreed with GRA officers at the GPO. One incident involved a small sorbet-maker that they put $6000 duty on. During the exchange with the GRA officials, one of the big-wigs came on the telephone to ask me how much duty I think the cream should carry. I told him none. Then came the shocker. This guy said all, I repeat all items that are brought in or posted into the country carries a duty (I suppose except books, bread and computers).
This is where the ruthlessness of the GRA comes in. Go any day at the parcel section of the GPO and see what types of people are collecting cartons of posted stuff. They are mostly poor citizens and working class folks.
I have seen GRA put duties on all types of second hand-clothing that comes for the poorer folks of this land. The GRA officials at the GPO are the most ruthless public sector workers in this country and people should speak out against them. That department of the GPO mainly serves working class folks.
Why put duty on a little blender, a little pressure- cooker, a little discman that citizens’ relatives send for them? This is merciless exploitation. I will speak to Patrick Yarde of the GPSU and ask him to intervene with these GRA officers and advise them to stop exploiting poor people because his union bargains for them. No point speaking to the opposition parties.
There aren’t opposition parties in Guyana that is why President Jagdeo told a Berbice audience that the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News are the new opposition.
I failed to make further contact with that man who originally was levied with a $16,000 duty. I wanted to ask him, as I am wont to do, how he voted the last time. When will East Indians open their eyes? Under the PNC Government, no duty would have been assigned to those little tubes of cream. I say this unapologetically.
I collected parcels from the GPO during the PNC regime, and duties were never levied on second-hand stuff. This Government is one of the most anti-working class cabals in the entire world.

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The Guyana Revenue Authority is a ruthless exploiter of poor people

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