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Hey Khurshid, you didn’t acknowledge me!

Dec 28, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

After decades of psychological suffering perpetrated upon vehicle owners of this country, the revenue authorities in a strange twist of fate, discovered commonsense. The maximum boss of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Khurshid Sattaur, announced that all vehicle owners in this country will not have to line up during a specific period of the calendar year to procure the motor vehicle licence (MVL). The nightmare has come to an end.
The nation is advised that your MVL is required to be taken out on the date of your vehicle registration. Why the minds of the GRA decided after decades to acquire commonsense, must and will remain a mystery. I know the GRA boss is not exactly enamoured with me, but at least he could have acknowledged my campaign in my columns for the change he has now adopted.
The last time, I dealt with the MVL, I argued that it made no sense in Guyana to renew your police fitness and your insurance on the day they expired but you have to secure your MVL from the GRA during a specific period in each year. At least when he made his announcement, Khurshid could have said; “We agree with a certain columnist.” He didn’t have to mention my name.
But the change is indicative of the reclamation of only partial commonsense. Why does the GRA have to share out a one-year licence? Why can’t you have the option of purchasing the document on a three-year basis? Those who cannot afford the $6,000 will have the option of paying the $2,000 for a one-year period. What is wrong with that? Do you know if your electricity or phone or water bill is $5,000 monthly, you can take a million dollars to GWI or GT&T or GPL and pay for the future? What they will do is keep sending you a credit bill until the million dollars is exhausted.
It is the same with rates and taxes. You can go to the Georgetown City Council and pay for the next five years. They will not refuse your money.
There is a financial advantage to the company if you pay in advance. If you migrate or die, then your money is lost. It is the same with the GRA. Suppose after taking out a three-year licence, the car is wrecked in an accident. GRA already received your cash. One would have thought that after the GRA pursued the path of commonsense, it would have gone the whole nine yards.
What is it that is strategically unworkable in paying for a three-year MVL?
Of course that will come. But some more suffering has to be endured by Guyanese drivers before commonsense in its entirety comes to the GRA. We will wake up one morning and read that the GRA is now selling two or three or five-year MVLs.
The sad thing about this country is that modern thinking takes so long to find a place in Guyana. This same GRA practices an obnoxious piece of backwardness that is simply horrible to say the least.
When a business place pays company tax, it is allowed depreciation of furniture and vehicles, but not private citizens for their personal car.  So the company, after buying a car for $2 million, puts down the worth of the car as $1million after a year has passed. I cannot do the same as a property tax payer. The worth of my car has to be the same for every year that I submit property tax. It was the GRA boss himself who yelled outside the Survival Supermarket on Sheriff Street; “Freddie, yuh gat to buy a new car,” after he saw that my car had broken down. That same vehicle bought since 2000 has to carry the 2000 value when I submit my 2011 property tax forms.
Try this one. I collect my pay at UG where PAYE is deducted. I take that salary, put it in  my saving account at the bank, and I am required to pay property tax on that very salary as part of my money in the bank. This is only a tiny segment in a large story of backwardness in this country, where people suffer tremendously because of a lack of vision.
Just imagine at all the Ministries and other public sector institutions, there are signs stipulating a dress code for women. Their tops and dresses must not be sleeveless. Why can’t a woman wear a formal dress that is designed without sleeves? What is morally wrong with such an appearance?

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