THE OPPOSITION People's National Party (PNP) has assembled a team of party workers and leaders to decide how it will respond to the new tax measures announced on Thursday.

Portia Simpson Miller, the party's president, told a press conference yesterday that she was not ruling out a national demonstration organised by the PNP.

An emergency meeting of the National Executive Council - the highest decision-making body of the party - has been called for this Sunday.

"We have a responsibility to the Jamaican people. I am ruling out nothing. All cards are on the table," Simpson Miller said.

The Government, on Thursday, announced a $21.8 billion tax package, the third for the fiscal year, as it moved to raise revenue and cut the Budget deficit.

In trashing the package, Simpson Miller said the PNP understood "the need for increasing revenue but how it is being done is unacceptable".

She said that the party would "continue to communicate with the people of Jamaica as to how we will, in solidarity with them, ensure that this Government gets the message very clearly that these wicked tax measures and economic policies will not be tolerated - not by the Opposition, or the majority of the people in this country".

Feasibility of the package

Meanwhile, Dr Omar Davies, opposition spokesman on finance, said there was no context in which to assess the feasibility of the Government's tax package and medium-term programme.

Davies also said the package was "ill conceived", arguing that it was not possible to "compress the economy and collect that level of taxes".

He said that there was an absence of equity in the package and argued that "no credible explanation has been presented for the rejection that there should be a special cess on interest of government paper.

"If this is to be a joint effort with sacrifices equally shared, there has to be some credible contribution from them on that," Davies said.

The opposition spokesman also cast doubt on whether progress had been made with regard to the country accessing over US$1.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund.

He argued that there was no indication of the key elements in the agreement, saying that Jamaicans deserved to know the deal-breakers in the letter of intent.

Simpson Miller also lashed government MPs who, she said, demonstrated contempt for the Jamaican people by jeering and heckling members of the Opposition as they "attempted to defend the rights of the Jamaican people" in Parliament on Thursday.

Disrespect

According to Simpson Miller, "It reveals their disrespect for the plight of the masses.

"Rather than demonstrating compassion, they were applauding the wickedest tax package that has ever been implemented in the country," Simpson Miller said.

The opposition leader said that the character of the Government was "uncaring and insensitive ... rude, crude and arrogant".

She said that Finance Minister Audley Shaw's statement in Parliament in which he called upon all members of the House of Representatives to "leave behind bad mind and bitterness and commit ourselves to be better and build" was regrettable.

The Opposition says it is holding Government to a commitment to reconstitute the committee on tax measures in Parliament and to allow for a full parliamentary debate on the macroeconomic programme.

The Jamaica Exporters' Association has also chimed in on the controversy surrounding the Government's latest tax package, saying it would negatively impact the country's economy.

"This is particularly so as the approach was bereft of consultation, is inequitable and deals solely with the fiscal deficit, without presenting an overall plan as to how we will grow the economy in the medium to long term," read a release from the organisation last evening.