Imbert questions UNC confusion over online payments

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert has questioned what he described as confusion in the Opposition UNC over the issue of online payments.

In a post on X on September 23, he said, "The irony is that while the Leader of the Opposition has declared that she is resolutely opposed to any transition to cashless payments in Trinidad and Tobago, because in her mind this would compromise private banking information, the UNC Opposition Couva South MP is demanding online payment."

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has publicly said she is against the establishment of a cashless society because it could give Government the power to obtain people's private financial information.

She first made this comment in August at a UNC public meeting in Chaguanas, and repeated it at another UNC meeting in Chaguanas on September 16.

At the latter, she said, "A cashless society means the control and coercion of citizens. It will destroy your freedoms, privacy, rights, and privileges you currently have, because you will have no control over your own money to live.

"The PNM and their cashless society will empty your accounts in the dead of night and pelt you and your family on the road when you have no cash to pay your living expenses."

At a news conference at UNC headquarters in Chaguanas on September 22, Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh asked why there was no online method to pay property tax, given the challenges people were having in meeting the September 30 deadline, and where Digital Transformation Minister Hassel Bacchus was in all of this.

Speaking in the House of Representatives on September 20, the Prime Minister said Imbert would address an extension of the deadline for paying property tax early in the following week.

Dr Rowley acknowledged what he said was people's enthusiasm to pay the tax and the challenges they were having in doing so.

Responding to questions in the Senate on September 17 about these challenges, Imbert said solutions were being worked on to address them.

He identified increasing the capacity of district revenue offices, collaboration with commercial banks and online payment methods as some of the solutions being explored.