It carries the air of a scandal: Government paying over $2 million in taxes for Michael Ashcroft's companies E-com and Sunshine Limited. Well last night we showed you how strange and costly it was for government, which is not subject to tax, to be paying over $2 million in tax for an Ashcroft company. That directive went from Senior Finance Advisor Joe Waight to Central Bank Governor Sydney Campbell.
Well apart from doing a favour for Ashcroft, what we couldn't figure last night is why Government would go through all the trouble to pay the tax and not just waive it. Well what we didn't know last night is that 80% of that payment, $1.8 million, goes directly to the companies registry which is now privately owned and operated by friends of the Musa administration. The formula for that dramatic "80 - 20" breakdown comes in a signed letter that was leaked from companies registry. In it, Deputy Registrar Cerafina Ross writes to Solicitor General Elson Kaseke (who is a little more than an interested party in all this) telling him that the total gross collected between January and March of this year was $1.3 million and, according to the letter, government's share of that is $273,000 which amounts to 21%, meaning that the registry's private owners who are friends of the administration keep 79%.
Who are those friends? Well according to the Leader of the Opposition, they include a member of Cabinet and a former member of Cabinet.
