The high number of Non-Communicable Disease cases on the island has prompted the government to raise excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages by $1.00 per litre, and on alcohol and tobacco by $0.75 per litre and per kilogram, respectively. During the 2024-2025 National Budget address to Parliament on Friday, July 26, Minister for Finance and former Minister of Health, Dr. Irvin McIntyre, expressed concern over the negative impact of NCDs, emphasizing their ripple effect on the country and its economy.
He stated, “it places a significant social, and economic, and financial on our society, it causes a strain on the Health care system, affects family life, and impacts the overall development of our country as more of our people become incapacitated or succumb to these illnesses.”
The fatality rate of NCDs continues to increase in Dominica, raising significant worries about the general well-being of its population. Acting Minister of Health, Dr. Cassandra Williams, reported in March that there were 114 cancer-related deaths between 2020-2021, with 136 confirmed between 2021-2022.
While advocating for healthier dietary habits, Dr McIntyre cautioned on Friday, “we must make a conscious effort to plant fruit trees in our yards and communities and make local juices.”Additionally, he urged the public, “let us, from today make a conscious effort to act responsibly and pay greater focus to…wellness and wellbeing, aiming for health and longevity.” Dr. McIntyre emphasized the importance of taking action to reduce the occurrence of NCDs locally.
The increased excise tax on the mentioned items will come into effect on September 1st, 2024.
Is the government going to tax sugar sold at Dexia ? and salt? ..y not cut back on …is this a method to stop purchasing medication at the Chinese hospital? this government seems to be without passport money …and is trying to make the limited working Dominicans pay for another house for the pm…..try your best to tax the working people…but always remember election will come again…always remember what the kadinagos did to you …after you all shared money….they wanted a drumstick 🍗
If you really serious just ban the import of salt and sugar. this tax will do nothing to solve the problem and is only another deception to raise taxes like the DOWASCO water tax imposed. The government is clearly strapped for cash and finding all deceptive ways to milk the people. it was the credit unions, then DOWASCO, now goods. yet, the leadership milking the state, and can walk around with $9,000 outfis because he is King of the jungle. allni will say history is full of kleptocrats who got thier heads removed publicly
Deception is this guy’s religion. He is taxing everything in the country. He will soon tax even the air we breathe next. Look out!
He wears $9 000 suits while his high maintenance wife sports $10 000 dresses, shoes, hairdos, make-up and jewelry combined. All at the expense of poor tax payers.
Incredibly, Dominicans sit nonchalantly and take this wickedness in complete silence. Tolerating wickedness only leads to more wickedness.
These jokers passing as government know they have destroyed Dominica and people are frustrated so they saying things just to make people laugh I suppose, although they getting people’s blood pressure to go up with their stress.
Dr McIntyre, if you feel your government has caused too many Dominicans to suffer from Non-Communicable Disease and as such, they going to increase sugary juices by $1.00, by how much they going to increase those very high local juices that seems to be sweeter than sugar itself without sugar content on the label? Man these jokers just need to set Dominica free from whatever spell they may have put on us, by resigning. To me the budget is a resignation budget
so what about the chemical the farmers are putting in their crops? the vegetables that don’t last and sometimes imported…..how will you tax them….look at how farmers are planting now….spray ..then plant within days….tell me?
Does Roosevelt have a mind of his own or is he just an amoebalike copycat of the Antigua Adolf Hitler?
Here is the unvarnished truth to the aforementioned question.
*Gaston increased taxes on many goods and services, Roosevelt followed suit.
*Gaston make his unfit wife a minister of gov’t, Roosevelt followed suit.
*Gaston behaves belligerent and dictatorial, Roosevelt follows suit.
*Gaston has greatly enriched himself in public office, Roosevelt has followed suit.
*Gaston has a propensity to empower foreigners, Roosevelt has followed suit.
*Gaston led gov’t is opaque and tramples the rule of law, Roosevelt has followed suit.
I could go on ad nauseam. Gaston seems to be the puppeteer and Roosevelt the deferential puppet.
The economy is so bad, unemployment is so high, the people are so ‘broke’, that most people are not going to be in a financial space to purchase the cheapest soft drinks. Most people will now resort to days of a past era and consume sugar mixed with
water.
Cost of living has already spiralled out of control and this stratagem will only serve to exacerbate it.
Another fictitious excuse to burden poor with additional taxes. In the last couple of months the cost of electricity, water and now drinks has risen. HEARTLESSNESS!
The cost of nutritious foods and drinks is prohibitively high for most residents who are either unemployed or work for starvation wages. Raise the minimum wage, create the economic environment to induce employment opportunities. Only then the people will have the financial means to eradicate cheap sugary drinks and salty, starchy and fatty foods from their everyday dietary intake.
This cash-strapped oligarchy in power, is using deceptive policies to make the already starving people to pay through their noses for cheap food under the guise of helping them to stop digging their graves with their mouths.
that same tax increase was done in the UK and it has had no impact on reducing those diseases
just another money grab by a failed regime
If they put a special tax on sweet drinks, they should also put it on bread, cakes, pastries, candy and other starchy and sugary foods.
When you are poor you are treated like a criminal. You are a target for numerous petty taxes, of scorn and insults, of victimization and dispossession, etc. To be poor in Dominica is equivalent to a crime.
@ putin – exactly! it’s all about the money
How about setting up public spaces where people can exercise, engage in sporting activities etc? In a country touted as the nature island there are barely any parks, plazas or public places for socialization in any of the main towns. The government spent millions on a beautiful state house that is closed off to the public meanwhile there are dozens of abandoned lots in major town centers that could be turned into public parks equiped with pull-up bars, benches gym equipment etc.
Thats not their concern. Skerrit have his private gym at his home he not worried about all you.