BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - Coming as it did just a few weeks after the false reporting of the number of completed Kittitian Hill cottages, the embarrassing CHALK-VAT outburst at the National Assembly last week caused the nation to let out a collective groan.
The Government can blame no one but itself that its credibility rating has been downgraded because when weighed in the balances of its very own behaviour, it comes up sadly short.
When the Hon. Shawn Richards exposed the fact that a Teacher in this year 2012 not only had to purchase her own chalk in order to carry out her teaching responsibilities, but also had to pay VAT on the purchase, he was attacked in a most vile way by the Prime Minister and two Labour Members of Parliament who called him a “liar”.
What is disturbing is that members of this Government which introduced the regime of Value Added Tax (VAT) not only did not know that CHALK, the lifeblood of a Teacher who has to write on a blackboard, attracts VAT but also refused to believe that it did even when presented with clear evidence.
The alarming points to ponder are:
• Why should a teacher in this day and age be put in a position of having to buy her own chalk – with or without VAT?
• Why did the Prime Minister and his colleagues have to descend to the level of common abuse simply because the Hon. Shawn Richards said something which they did not like?
• Why did the Prime Minister and his colleagues not apologise to the Hon. Shawn Richards, to the House and to the general public when the truth was clearly pointed out to them?
• And where was the Hon. Speaker in all of this? We might well ask.
The disgraceful behaviour of the Prime Minister and members of the Government in the National Assembly was not the behaviour any teacher would ask his/her students to emulate.
Persons 50 years of age and over used to be warned by their parents and elders not to call someone a liar. They were permitted to say that what the person was saying was untrue but that did not justify calling the person a liar. That was regarded as being unnecessarily crude and not necessarily true.
Nowadays we shudder as we wonder what exactly are the behavioural standards our youth are expected to live by and whose decorum are they expected to imitate?
Our students are expected to apologise when they make an error especially if in doing so they disgrace someone else. Our leaders are expected to do no less.
Mr. Speaker, the ball is in your court.
