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‘Donation, not taxation for vax fund’ – Marshall

by Emmanuel Joseph
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The head of the UWI think-tank SALISES on Friday offered qualified support for Government’s proposed plan to set up a COVID-19 vaccine fund financed by public donations.

Dr Don Marshall said the fund should be supported by a free-will contribution, and advised the Mottley administration to stay clear of any form of taxation.

The academic, who leads the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at UWI Cave Hill, said in a Barbados TODAY interview that he hopes Prime Minister Mottley’s planned fund-raising appeal is not done under the guise of a tax.

He said: Let’s hope that we can be able to do this without the prime minister as minister of finance having to resort to a tax measure, or a fund-raising measure, which is a tax by any other name. The appeal, once it is matched by a roll-out of different ways in which one can make that kind of contribution, I think people would contribute.”

On Thursday night, the Prime Minister told a nation-wide broadcast that government would shortly launch a national vaccine fund to pay for future vaccines, and will be appealing to residents to make donations, rather than charging them.

Mottley said: “I truly believe that a national vaccine campaign will help us turn the corner. Tonight is not the night for me to speak of the detail of a national vaccine fund that will we launch very shortly to help us pay for the vaccines when they come…because they will come at a high cost.

“We were fortunate that this first 100,000 were free and therefore it would be unethical for us to have charged anyone. Barbados is that place where we educate each other at the tertiary level without charging fees because all of us commit to take the most vulnerable among us and the weakest among us on the journey.

“Similarly in this vaccine journey we are not charging people, but we will be appealing to people to donate to the national vaccine fund at individual levels and at corporate levels…because your government is under stress, but we are not going to change who we are because as you heard me say over and over, principles only mean something when it is inconvenient to stand by them.”

But Dr Marshall recommended that the ideal approach to raising the funds would be through a radiothon or telethon and by reaching out to the entire diaspora as a philanthropic effort.

He told Barbados TODAY: “I think appealing for donations in the form of philanthropic giving, particularly through a lot of crowdfunding…radiothon, telethon set of modelling is ideal…it can raise the revenue quite quickly. Of course, this has to be purchased through foreign exchange, but we do hear talk about the amount of reserves we have…but that should be no problem.

“But raising that fund inside of Barbados and outside of Barbados would alleviate the need for paying for further vaccines purely out of our reserves…and the money raised locally can be used to help with the vaccination roll out because that has to be administered locally, and that is spend as well.”

Dr Marshall also declared that the Prime Minister’s proposal should be embraced in the same spirit in which it was made.

“I expect there will be a roll-out of ways in which one can contribute,” he said. “Certainly crowdfunding is one way she can reach across the diaspora to have Barbadians engaged in that kind of online philanthropic blending. So I would see that as a high priority.”

Mottley also announced that Government is expecting a large shipment of vaccines to begin arriving here soon.

To date, more than 30,000 vaccines have been administered and Mottley said that “by the weekend, we will be in the home stretch for the administration of this first order of vaccines”, a gift of the Indian government.

(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)

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