And while Flowers is raising a dispute to those figures, he did discuss how Wednesday's budget talks went between the PSU and the Government.
He said that the conversation was cordial:
Dean Flowers - Vice-President, PSU
"It would be proper of me to say that the budget consultation was very productive. The discussions across the table were very respectful and very cordial. I want to thank the Government for the opportunity given to us because I think it's important that we hear from them, and equally important that they hear from us."
"I think the salient points coming out of the discussion was, of course, the issue of unemployment, and the numbers aren't pretty. I believe the number that we looked at was around 64,000 individuals who are listed as being unemployed. So, we had a brief discussion on that to set the tone for the meeting, which was that clearly, the country is suffering. People are suffering, and people are expecting the government to come to their aid."
"We then, of course, went into some of the numbers as it pertains to the Government's performance where its revenues are concerned. We took notes, and we've had some opportunity to look at some of those numbers."
"In essence, what we're seeing right now is that we have more questions now because we're not in agreement with the manner in which the Government chose to do their analysis when looking at some of the numbers, so perhaps, we'll have further discussion on those. I think key among those would be the issue of the budget shortfall."
"That press release spoke about the deficit of around 331 million. Well, that was the number shared with us. The manner in which the presentation was done, one would get the impression that there's a deficit of 331 million dollars, and that is not the case. There's a shortfall in revenue collection of 331 million dollars, vs a budget deficit."
"What we have is a debt crisis. We have is a debt crisis. We have a 134% debt to GDP ratio. So, the conversation that I would want to see us start having is what are the measures that we can put in place in the medium and long term to deal with that."
The PSU vice-president also discussed the Government's report on the total revenue collection for last year. He said that, from Wednesday's meeting, the ministers were quoting a figure of 70% collection. Here's his discussion with us about the other missing 30%:
Dean Flowers - Vice-President, PSU
"Speaking of the 70% revenue collection now, we're able to do a little bit of analysis on that as well, in comparison with the budget estimates. Of the total revenue collection, 92% of that is attributable to taxable revenues, and that is equivalent to 841 million dollars. 7.7% of that is attributable to non-taxable revenues, which represents 65 million."
Had we been a little more vigilant in our revenue collections, we could have done better. What we need to ask ourselves is the remaining 30% that was not collected, what might have been the reason for that. Is that as a result of tax evasion, or is that as a result of the pandemic?"
