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One of the biggest political opposers to a goods and services tax has taken to social media to call for support to a revitalised anti-GST movement.
Deputy Carl Meerveld has posted a video on Facebook, criticising Policy and Resources’ preferred route of GST coupled with borrowing and social security reform, while claiming once again that windfarms could be the answer to the island’s financial woes.
“The people have spoken... they don’t want GST, we saw that when over 4,000 people marched earlier this year,” he said.
“However, our Policy and Resources Committee seems to be bloody-minded about pursuing it at any cost, to the point where I was actually fired from the working group that was looking at offshore windfarms as a way to generate – in my opinion – as much or more money than GST.”
Deputy Meerveld was at the forefront of the anti-GST movement earlier this year, leading marches against the introduction of a 5% tax.
That proposal was defeated; however, P&R will once again be pitching its package of GST and social security reform – this time with an added £350million in borrowing – as its preferred option during the Funding and Investment Plan debate next week.
While the introduction of GST doesn’t constitute the whole package, and P&R continues to argue the island has been left with very little choice, the anti-GST motto has once again been picked up as a unifying chant among its many critics.
You can watch Deputy Meerveld’s video below:
P&R dropped Deputy Meerveld as Chairman of its Offshore Wind Group after he suggested that exporting renewable energy might remove the need for a GST, a claim which P&R said was premature.
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