Pesticides, tobacco and social cohesion

Nov 30, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

More people die each year in Guyana from pesticide and weedicide poisoning each year than from the effects of cigarette smoking. This is why despite the increased incidence of respiratory cancers, the country has one of the world’s highest rates of suicide.
In this context, one has to ask just what the Minister of Finance is hoping to achieve in his 2019 Budget by increasing the taxes on cigarettes and granting a tax exemption on pesticides. It was one of the surprising measures announced in the 2019 Budget
One can appreciate the government’s efforts to reduce cigarette smoking. Guyana has enjoined itself to global efforts to reduce cigarette smoking.
It is commendable public policy to institute measures to reduce smoking. But the same should apply to pesticide usage.
One would have thought that in order to better control the importance of pesticides and reduce its smuggling, that the Minister would have increased the taxes on deadly poisons. The support that this particular tax measure will provide is negligible, saving the treasury a mere $4 million per year.
On the other hand, the Minister is being unduly harsh against smokers. The VAT on cigarettes is 14%; the import tax is 100%, plus every smoker will be faced with an additional $2.50 for every cigarette purchased.
A new tobacco law has been passed and when implemented fully will curtail smoking in public places. The cigarette company is required to stamp cigarettes. Such a measure could have easily been applied to the importation of pesticides as a means of reducing smuggling and controlling its use.
Pesticides are no friends of farmers. On the very day that the Minister of Finance presented his long-winded Budget speech, reports out of South Africa were pointing fingers at pesticides for the deaths of millions of honey bees. And reports out of India have long suggested that pesticides result in the deaths of scores of farmers each year. It is estimated that globally almost 800,000 farmers die each year from pesticide poisoning.
The government should be moving to ban the importation of pesticides or to more strictly control its use, not fiddle with the tax regime by exempting it from taxes. But that is the strange logic which underlies many of the measures in the 2019 Budget.
Another major anomaly in Budget 2019 is the sum of G$480 M which is allocated to the Department of Social Cohesion. When one considers the tight-fistedness of the government towards the teachers – who were initially offered a mere G$700m to cover increases for wages and salaries dating back to 2016 – this enormous sum granted for social cohesion raises suspicions as to why this huge outlay for conducting outreaches and training.
In 2017, when the then Minister of Health, Dr. George Norton, was moved to the Ministry of Social Cohesion – now the Department of Social Cohesion – he noted that he was moving from a Ministry with a Budget of G$23B to one which had a Budget of G$9M. It is now, according to the Budget speech about to receive G$480M. Very interesting indeed!
The Golden Jubilee of Republican status will be celebrated in February 2020. But monies are already being allocated for 2019 to kick start those celebrations. In fact, $350M is being allocated to commence preparations for the Golden Jubilee. This represents 50% of the initial offer which made to teachers during their negotiations.
The priorities of the government, as outlined in Budget 2019, are lopsided. While everything cannot be done at the same time, the priorities are what matters, and quite simply the government’s priorities are also mixed up.

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Pesticides, tobacco and social cohesion

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