Al-Rawi: Property tax will serve the people

New Minister of Rural Affairs and Local Government Faris Al-Rawi has said the property tax will only be beneficial to the people and will be used to fund the needs of local government.

Al-Rawi was speaking during the sitting of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, when a joint select committee’s (JSC) report on the Local Government Reform Bill, 2020 was debated.

“We are saying the money for property tax will go into serving the people,” he said. “This bill allows for the greatest form of equity. (Corporations) get to save (and) put money to work.

“Property tax in local government is something critical to life. The money that comes from property tax will go into a statutory fund.”

He said the money generated from property tax will be used to construc and maintain local roads, for which local government is 80 per centresponsible, as well as maintain drains, local health, garbage collection, recreational grounds and parks, cemeteries, tourism sitesand government schools.

Housing Minister Camille Robinson-Regis said the JSC report was signed by all parties except for the opposition senators, who tabled a minority report which said, among other things, they disagreed with the implementation of a property tax and that there was not enough stakeholder consultation.

St Augustine MP Khadijah Ameen said the bill was a tool to implement the property tax and the Opposition will not support any measures to implement it.

Al-Rawi also condemned comments by the Opposition which he said degraded the work of the local government office.

“All of a sudden the dignity in service to the people has been reduced to ‘rat and CEPEP.’”

The Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme is involved in the “beautification” of the environment and falls under the remit of the Local Government Ministry.

“As a member of Parliament coming from local government, as I have served as an alderman (and) my grandparents served in county council, I have generations of service. This is a great pleasure.”

Al-Rawi also disagreed with the Opposition’s claim that there was not enough stakeholder consultation on the bill.

He said from 2008-2016, 8,500 people have been consulted across 250 entities. He said there were also social media interactions amounting to 32,000 contributions on Twitter, 11,000 visitors to the interactive with over 200,000 responses and interactions, and a total of 512,000 interactions from 2015 to date.

He said local government is the most important enterprise the government is focusing on.

During his tenure as Attorney General, he said, he was responsible for 1,900 employees. In local government he is now responsible for 30,000.