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Former finance minister and Member for Diego Martin North-­East Colm Imbert on Friday accused Finance Minister Daven­dra­nath Tancoo and the Go­vernment of “living in la-la land”.

He said the United National Congress (UNC) Government will fail in its efforts to raise revenue to run the country.

Speaking in the debate on the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority Repeal bill, at the Red House, Port of Spain, Imbert said Tancoo was behaving as if he could fix the weaknesses of the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR), in terms of tax evasion and leakage, with the wave of his “magic wand...swish...and all of a sudden, the Public Service Commission that could not fill the vacancies in the Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue Divisions while the UNC was in power, both from 1995 to 2001 and from 2010 to 2015...all of a sudden, with a new minister who will wave his magic wand and the Public Service Commission will fill all the vacancies one time. You (Tancoo) living in la-la land.”