The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The deputy prime minister said that there will be no tax cuts or additional incentives for businesses coming out of the COVID-19 lockdown.

K Peter Turnquest, speaking to reporters outside of cabinet office yesterday responded to questions about the government considering reducing the value added tax (VAT) back to 7.5 percent as a way to give businesses a kick-start, said: “At the moment, no. The reality is that we are not receiving much revenue at all and in the meanwhile government has to run on.”

Mr Turnquest also said: “The incentives and the assistance that we have given to businesses as well as to individuals has to be paid for and so those businesses that are operating and that have been able to operate during this period, we’re counting on them. We need them, unfortunately. So I don’t that at the moment, obviously as we go forward we make decisions, but at the moment I don’t see that as an option.”

In addition to the government assistance programmes already in place, Mr Turnquest said that the game plan to stimulate the economy in the meantime is that the government will have to rely on the domestic economy more than it had before the COVID-19 shutdown and that the government has undertaken a “simulative infrastructure programme, where we will be doing projects that need to be done anyway, but we will bring them forward to engage as many people and small businesses as we can to try and provide some form of income to those individual families. The Minister for Works (Desmond Bannister) will talk about that and the prime minister spoke about it on Monday evening, but we will speed up some of the infrastructure work we already have on the board and other small projects we can engage small businesses in. We will certainly roll those forward to try and assist.”

Mr Turnquest also warned small businesses that are saying that they don’t having the leeway to reopen on August 31: “They have a responsibility to be responsible to make sure that their customers follow the rules as people enter the establishments that they sanitise, make sure that they have on masks, make sure that they enforce the distancing protocols. Make sure that their staff know what the protocols are in the first instance and are educated about the protocols and that they follow through diligently and that they put in place internal safety inspectors to ensure that they go around and ensure that all of the people are doing what they are supposed to be doing having on gloves or masks or whatever.

He added: “Again, this is not a big business, small business, government or individual problem. This is a problem that we all face and together we can beat it.”