Prime Minister Perry Christie has finally broken his silence on the Ishmael Lightbourne controversy.
In so doing, he has missed entirely the point of the debate surrounding his government’s chief value-added tax (VAT) advocate, who has dodged real property taxes for more than 20 years.
Christie’s stunning defense of Lightbourne was also a defense of himself.
It does not reflect well on him that he appointed someone who owes more than $100,000 in real property taxes to sell the VAT message.
In making that appointment last year, the prime minister — whether knowingly or unknowingly — placed his own VAT message and program in jeopardy.
In strongly defending Lightbourne in the House of Assembly last Thursday night, Christie sought to kill the controversy, but he needs to do much more to restore confidence in the tax reform process.
Lightbourne has acknowledged that he is a hypocrite — lecturing the country on VAT, preaching of the need for a revenue court to deal with tax dodgers when he has avoided paying taxes for over two decades.
While the prime minister resorted to his story about the “redemptive power of second chances”, he failed to highlight in Parliament that Lightbourne was a tax dodger long before he made what Christie said was a grave professional “mistake” while he worked in the private sector.
Defending Lightbourne in the House of Assembly during the mid-year budget debate, Christie said he did not pay his taxes due to “financial incapacity”.
No doubt, the revenue court the government intends to establish to deal with tax dodgers will have many people before it with this same explanation, if not excuse.
How can the prime minister expect the government to be successful in prosecutions before the revenue court when he has already sent the message in the House of Assembly that it is okay not to pay taxes for more than 20 years?
Or is it just okay for some people?
Instead of acknowledging the hypocrisy of Lightbourne’s position, and his own bad judgment in appointing Lightbourne to the position of VAT Unit coordinator, Christie attempted to drum up sympathy for the tax dodger as his parliamentary colleagues pounded their tables in approval.
From the prime minister’s arguments, the public is to accept the contradiction of the coordinator of the VAT Unit owing more than $100,000 in real property taxes.
And we are to accept that for the past 20 plus years, Lightbourne is to be excused because of “financial incapacity”.
Click here to read the complete article at www.thenassauguardian.com
