7 News Belize

From Press Conference to Protest, Yohny Can’t Pay
posted (November 10, 2017)
Two weeks ago tour operator Yohny Rosado held a press conference in collaboration with COLA to sound the alarm about a business crisis he's facing.

Rosado was assessed by the General Sales Tax Office for owing $700,00 in arrears.

At the time, he said the bill was outrageous, unfair, and untrue and said it had trend his life and his business upside down.

He says he cannot pay the bill - so he's going to keep up the social pressure.

Today activists and Rosado spearheaded a protest outside the GST office at the Complex Building not just condemn the six-figure bill, but also to rage, generally, against corruption. 7News was there, and here's what Rosado and two other Social Activists had to say.

Moses Sulph, Activist
"The main root cause of this is corruption. We have seen a sustained way of corruption in our government and we believe that is so high that is destroying all other sectors."

"The process that they put Mr. Rosado through is due to the fact that they have people in high levels in other offices who manipulate figures and who manipulate time. And yes indeed they are targeting people who are denouncing the high level of government incompetence."

"We have no problem with the fact that Mr. Rosado must pay if he owes GST however it must not be done in a way where it is manipulated whereby that amount is increased significantly and whereby he is asked to pay more than he is actually making."

Erwin X, Social Activist
"As a result of the murders I put together a banner with faces for the past five years, just five years alone over 300 faces of our own young brothers, young soldiers, young fathers, young sons, people with promise some of our scientist and chemists. Our physicists, doctors, lawyers, engineers in the graves and still no outcry so as a result of that in solidarity with the movement. I am present to send a message to the society and the leaders that we need change."

Yohny Rosado, Owner of Cavetubing.com/Tour Operator
"Now I have been audited all the way from 2009 and they have found some default or some mis-payment of 6 almost $700,000 a million dollars. How could that happen in my business and I grew up with GST, with BTB, with the industry? They could have corrected me if I was wrong then but I have been paying GST from day 1. I created my own numbers so this is a pure corruption movement."

"There is no plan. I will go to jail mien. You tell me, you have the money to pay. Nobody has this amount of money. No local businessman has that amount of money to pay a million dollars so they know what they are doing. They are trying to make us kill ourselves. Suicide ourselves. That is a suicide paper."

"This GST supposed to guide me to make my business flourish so my kids will pay GST. I am about to sell my two business."

"I gotta sell. I gotta go. I can't live like this. I can't have my kids. As soon as I sell I will be deciding because remember you are asking me a question when I have a family too so my family decides the majority of the things that I do but really and truly my heart, my life is not here."

The peaceful protest had about 50 participants at its height. They marched up and down for a little over an hour.

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