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Gross negligence and inefficiency in Mr. Jordan’s own ministry
Dear Editor,
I have been taken aback by the Government’s attempts to justify and rationalize its decision to levy a 14% VAT on the purchasers of private education services. The claims attributed to the Hon. Minister of Finance as reported in the newspapers, if true, point to gross negligence and inefficiency in his own ministry and the Ministry of Education.
Government inefficiency and/ mismanagement should not be the argument for the introduction of new tax burdens for citizens.
Perhaps the most jarring of his assertions was this one’ …”if the government didn’t put a tax, by the end of this semester or the next, the fees go up”…..followed by another, marginally less offensive… the operators of private schools can afford to absorb the 14% VAT.” These statements, betray the pettiness and hostility that many in power have shown towards the growth and success of private education in Guyana. There has always been a focus on fees collected but a complete disregard for the efforts and costs incurred in the provision of the service. Incidentally, this growth and success has been due to the public’s dissatisfaction with the quality of public education.
When questioned about the “absorption” of the levy by private school operators, the Minister then said; “what I was recommending was only a way out. I don’t want to suggest that VAT on tuition fees was meant to be absorbed by the schools” A way out from what? Education is a right. If a government is unable to adequately cater to public demand for this right, entrepreneurs and genuine non-profit organisations will work to supplement and enhance access to it.
Those interventions improve the quality of the service but do not alter the right. The 14 % levy impedes access to the right of a good education for thousands of Guyanese children and is inappropriate. The suggestion that private school operators can afford to absorb the cost is not the way out.
L. T. French
Maryland, USA
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