GRA has no authority to approve duty free concessions

May 19, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) in its response to “allegations of corruption” has rendered itself complicit in violating the very laws which it is entrusted to administer and enforce. The GRA has also, by its response, placed itself above law, superior to both the Minister of Finance and the Parliament of Guyana.
The GRA has no powers to approve duty free concessions. Whoever within GRA is of this mistaken belief must be disabused of that notion. The law is crystal clear as regards duty free concessions.
The Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Act of 2003 which governs duty free concessions grants no discretion or flexibility in the award or administration of such concessions.
The purpose of the legislation was to remove discretion in the grating of duty free concession and move towards a rule-based system, one that allows no flexibility. The explanatory notes of the legislation clearly states that the relevant section of the law “limits the duty-free concession to specified public officers and remigrants; restricts the frequency with which the right to the concession may be exercised.” The GRA cannot set its own rules as to eligibility for duty-free concessions because it has no such powers.
The rules are set by the law itself and the certification of eligibility is done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( in the case of remigrants) and the Public Service Ministry in the case of specified public officers which includes parliamentarians and other public officials above the GS5 salary scale of the public service who are travelling officers.
The Public Service Ministry has established the categories of officers who are eligible for duty free concessions and the engine capacities of the vehicles to which such concessions may be applied.
All public officers are subject to these rules.
The GRA, therefore, cannot create its own categories under the delusional belief that it is a semi-autonomous agency and thus not restricted to what applies to all other public officials.
The GRA is not above the law. It cannot make its own law and at the same time administer that law. It cannot exercise flexibility where the law does not make such provision. The Head of the Customs was reported to have applied to the Public Service Ministry for their certification of his right to a duty free concession on a vehicle above 2362 cc.
That application was denied and so the GRA, has now confessed that it applied its own rules, including allowing the Head of its Customs operation to pay a tax rate which is applicable to remigrants and not to public officers.
The GRA has therefore implicated itself in tax irregularities.
It has placed itself above the parliament. It has gone against the established practice in the public service in relation to duty free concessions.
It has disregarded the prohibition announced by the Minister of Finance in relation to vehicles over eight years old. The GRA has become a law onto itself.
Anil Maharaj

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