For­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says the Gov­ern­ment pro­ject­ed An­gos­tu­ra will lose near­ly $60 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly due to its fail­ure to im­ple­ment the full tax on its rum.

He added that the ac­tu­al in­crease in rum prices should have been $60 fol­low­ing the tax ad­just­ment, but prices rose by on­ly $46, rais­ing ques­tions about what hap­pened to the re­main­ing $14.

“And it will come. That is a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny. It is on the stock ex­change. You think the share­hold­ers tak­ing that? They will make (Gary) Hunt raise that up to $170. You wait and see. Now what Gov­ern­ment does some­thing like that? When the min­is­ter an­nounced that, they all banged the ta­ble. They said when UNC wins, every­body wins, so drinkers win, or­di­nary peo­ple win,” Im­bert said.