by CARIBUPDATE NEWS SERVICE Special Correspondent
July 24, 2012
ST GEORGE’S, GRENADA: Government backbencher Michael Church says Prime Minister Tillman Thomas has deliberately sought to mislead the debate on his vote in parliament last week against a bill that would have imposed new fees for the insurance industry.
Church said that his vote was not against broadening regulation, but concerns about the new fees, which he says he hopes will be amended before the bill is returned.
The MPs comments were made Tuesday during a radio interview with journalist Rawle Titus on GTC Radio.
During the show Church was played an audio clip from Sunday’s Tivoli rally, during which the Prime Minister lambasted the vote against the bill.
“The amendment was calling for one percent of the premium on a monthly basis to be paid by the insurance companies, not the premium holders,” Prime Minister Thomas said at the rally.
But Church shot back saying the Prime Minister was deliberately “misinforming the public” on the issue.
He said the Prime Minister’s declaration was not true. He argued that the amendment was calling for the policyholders to pay the new levy, not the companies.
“I want to point out that often times the Prime Minister misleads the public; he tells lies at times – sorry to use that term,” Church declared in the interview.
“These are the things and so on I hope that the media will pick up and deal with,” he added.
“People like MP Hood and myself, the media deals in a rigid and tough way and I think they have a right too, but they must use the measuring stick to everybody else,” Church complained.
Church’s comments about the media coverage comes at a time when especially the Grenada Broadcasting Network has come under increasing criticism over how it has handled local political coverage in recent months.
One facebook poster dubbed GBN as “the campaign headquarters for Tillman Thomas.”
Speaking on government’s push to not only collect a levy on premiums, but add an additional half million dollar security deposit from insurance companies, Church said, “this sort of onerous charges in this period – is just too much.”
Critics of the government measure say it has little to do with regulation, but with the government desire to get extra revenue.
“It comes back to a point I made in the budget debate, where you have the government using all means to tax and over tax an already over taxed population,” Church said. “We have to find ways and means to create wealth and expand our economy.”
