๐๐ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ง ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ก, ๐๐ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐ญ๐ซ๐ฒ!
๐.๐ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐ฏ๐ข๐ฌ๐ข๐ญ๐๐ ๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ข๐๐'๐ฌ ๐ฌ๐ก๐จ๐ซ๐๐ฌ. ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐๐๐ฏ๐๐ง๐ฎ๐ ๐ ๐ซ๐๐ฐ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฆ ๐๐$๐.๐ ๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐ฑ๐ข๐ฆ๐๐ญ๐๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐$๐ ๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐๐
Tourism in Jamaica, is like, a person who comes into your home, go into your kitchen, they cook a 10-course meal using your ingredients. They Eat everything and give you scraps, in your home, in your kitchen from your ingredients, tell you to clean up after they make a mess and tell you to be thankful and grateful for the scraps. I am not against tourism, I just want it to be in the National and Environment Interest of the Nation.
I will fight for Tourism as an industry when I am sure of tourism’s total contribution to Social Development and Nation Building. I will fight for tourism when I am sure it exists in the national interest. BUT Ever since tourism was developed as an industry in this country, it has never been in the National Interest. It serves the Special Foreign Interest and gives suitcase of cash to members of the political class. I am not prepared to accept scraps, to jump through hoops for scraps and I will not support trickle down Tourism. I am off the mindset, that if an industry does not exist in this country to benefit the people of this country first, then might as well it does not exist.
Tourism in Jamaica, is like, a person who comes into your home, go into your kitchen, they cook a 10-course meal using your ingredients. They Eat everything and give you scraps, in your home, in your kitchen from your ingredients, tell you to clean up after they make a mess and tell you to be thankful and grateful for the scraps. I am not against tourism, I just want it to be in the National and Environment Interest of the Nation.
I will fight for Tourism as an industry when I am sure of tourism’s total contribution to Social Development and Nation Building. I will fight for tourism when I am sure it exists in the national interest. BUT Ever since tourism was developed as an industry in this country, it has never been in the National Interest. It serves the Special Foreign Interest and gives suitcase of cash to members of the political class. I am not prepared to accept scraps, to jump through hoops for scraps and I will not support trickle down Tourism. I am off the mindset, that if an industry does not exist in this country to benefit the people of this country first, then might as well it does not exist.
Africa have some of the world’s most valuable resources that does not exist to benefit Africa. For hundreds of years, Africa's wealth only benefited the UK, EU, USA and other Western Financial powers at the expense of Africa’s development.
This mostly foreign owned tourist industry is trying to convince us that, what we get from tourism is what we deserve and no more. They have also paid the political class to normalize that view. Most foreign owned resorts pay no taxes, import duty free, import managerial staff and exist under the Tourism Incentive Act forever. Their only contribution is paying for low wage jobs because in a lot of cases the middle and upper management are all imported from foreign.
No one is really sitting us down and having a honest conversation about tourism’s contribution to Nation Building. We hear a lot about Head Count and Gross Earnings but we do not know how that translates to Social Development and Nation Building. We hear that Tourism is grossing US$3 Billion and we know, Bank of Jamaica declare that about 78% of profits from all Foreign Direct Investments leave the country. In a lot of cases the Tourist money does not even get to Jamaica because a foreign own corporation have their booking and accounting offices in their home countries and when a person calls the toll-free number it does not ring out in Jamaica. Financial transactions are done overseas, so I can imagine they just transfer what they need, the bare minimum to cover expenditure while registering the full value of the transaction as revenue. I understand investors need to make profits but this is totally taking the piss and would never be done if they were dealing with the developed first world!
I know a lot of people are saying we are poor, third world country and we should just bend over and accept what we can get, take the scraps because it is better than nothing. I am NOT ONE of those people. I am tired of living on other people’s terms but what happen here is NOT up to me, I am just a rebel in the wind.
There was a time when ordinary Jamaicans could not even go near a resort in their own country, they were not allowed through the gates. There was a time when ordinary Jamaicans were priced out of vacationing in their own country and at the same time were denied visa and travel permits to vacation in other people’s country. We could not vacation a yard and we could not vacation abroad. I remember a demonstration during the 70’s about access to hotels and after the first two fires dual pricing was introduced. One price for foreigners and another price for local Jamaicans.
I need to know net contribution, I need to know who is not paying taxes and for how long they have not paid any taxes. I need to know who is importing and what they are importing and whether it could be sourced locally. I need to know what percentage of local inputs are being consumed by these hotels. I need to know if these hotels are contributing to retirement packages and education packages of their employees. I need them to stick to environmental guidelines.
Why is it that whenever a Jamaican question the behavior of foreign corporation, question their actions, there is always some person who will accuse you of Looking for Handout. I am NOT asking for hand out, I am demanding that our country be paid what is owned, a fair price for our wealth resources.
I expect the corporations who own the Tourist resorts to meet their tax obligations as required under the law, pay their fair share of taxes so we can invest in the Nation Building process, invest in Healthcare, Invest in Education, Invest in the development of this country. Give unto Jamaica, what belongs to Jamaica, a fair share of what was earned in Jamaica and stop hiding behind various tax dodging schemes, stop shifting profits overseas to minimize tax burden and stop bribing members of the Political class.
At what point will we regard The Tourism Industry as an adult industry, not a baby industry that requires constant Tax Incentives and constant, never ending Tax waivers but an adult mature industry earning US$3.5 BILLION per years from this tiny island. Most of this Revenue is exported back to developed first world countries, leaving us with scraps. How much longer must the Jamaican people carry the burden of tourism on our backs while getting very little for it, while the foreign corporations live high, off the profits?
We willingly destroy our environment by giving them access to our land and sea without regulation. We give them complete access to our beaches even though our Constitution declared that one cannot privatize a beach. We allow them to pay starvation wages and import middle and upper management. We allow them not only unrestricted access to their revenues but freedom to extract it from the country. We allow them to exist under various Incentives Acts to increase their ease of doing business and not paying their fair share of taxes. We allow them to import duty free and we do not force them to source local inputs. To say they have free reign is an understatement.
And when we bring up the idea that they should start paying their fair share, like everyone else, to have a more equitable distribution of the profits. We are told, we are looking for a handout from revenues generated at our expense, in our country, from our sun, seas, land, beaches and human resources.
I read where the US, UK and EU Governments are going after corporations who shift their profits around to avoid paying taxes. Big Companies like Google and Amazon among others are cheating countries out of billions yearly. But when they go after these corporations, they are practicing good governance and when brown coloured people try to tackle the same issue, just talk about it, we are just looking for a hand out, worthless and begging.
This mostly foreign owned tourist industry is trying to convince us that, what we get from tourism is what we deserve and no more. They have also paid the political class to normalize that view. Most foreign owned resorts pay no taxes, import duty free, import managerial staff and exist under the Tourism Incentive Act forever. Their only contribution is paying for low wage jobs because in a lot of cases the middle and upper management are all imported from foreign.
No one is really sitting us down and having a honest conversation about tourism’s contribution to Nation Building. We hear a lot about Head Count and Gross Earnings but we do not know how that translates to Social Development and Nation Building. We hear that Tourism is grossing US$3 Billion and we know, Bank of Jamaica declare that about 78% of profits from all Foreign Direct Investments leave the country. In a lot of cases the Tourist money does not even get to Jamaica because a foreign own corporation have their booking and accounting offices in their home countries and when a person calls the toll-free number it does not ring out in Jamaica. Financial transactions are done overseas, so I can imagine they just transfer what they need, the bare minimum to cover expenditure while registering the full value of the transaction as revenue. I understand investors need to make profits but this is totally taking the piss and would never be done if they were dealing with the developed first world!
I know a lot of people are saying we are poor, third world country and we should just bend over and accept what we can get, take the scraps because it is better than nothing. I am NOT ONE of those people. I am tired of living on other people’s terms but what happen here is NOT up to me, I am just a rebel in the wind.
There was a time when ordinary Jamaicans could not even go near a resort in their own country, they were not allowed through the gates. There was a time when ordinary Jamaicans were priced out of vacationing in their own country and at the same time were denied visa and travel permits to vacation in other people’s country. We could not vacation a yard and we could not vacation abroad. I remember a demonstration during the 70’s about access to hotels and after the first two fires dual pricing was introduced. One price for foreigners and another price for local Jamaicans.
I need to know net contribution, I need to know who is not paying taxes and for how long they have not paid any taxes. I need to know who is importing and what they are importing and whether it could be sourced locally. I need to know what percentage of local inputs are being consumed by these hotels. I need to know if these hotels are contributing to retirement packages and education packages of their employees. I need them to stick to environmental guidelines.
๐ ๐ง๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ฆ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ ๐๐จ๐จ๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ข๐ณ๐๐ง ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ C๐๐ฌ๐ก ๐๐จ๐ฐ!
Why is it that whenever a Jamaican question the behavior of foreign corporation, question their actions, there is always some person who will accuse you of Looking for Handout. I am NOT asking for hand out, I am demanding that our country be paid what is owned, a fair price for our wealth resources.
I expect the corporations who own the Tourist resorts to meet their tax obligations as required under the law, pay their fair share of taxes so we can invest in the Nation Building process, invest in Healthcare, Invest in Education, Invest in the development of this country. Give unto Jamaica, what belongs to Jamaica, a fair share of what was earned in Jamaica and stop hiding behind various tax dodging schemes, stop shifting profits overseas to minimize tax burden and stop bribing members of the Political class.
I read where the US, UK and EU Governments are going after corporations who shift their profits around to avoid paying taxes. Big Companies like Google and Amazon among others are cheating countries out of billions yearly. But when they go after these corporations, they are practicing good governance and when brown coloured people try to tackle the same issue, just talk about it, we are just looking for a hand out, worthless and begging.
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