Beckles: Bill is a money-making venture for govt

Com­ment­ing on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said this is just an­oth­er mon­ey-mak­ing ven­ture for the gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Beck­les said, “If you re­call last year in the bud­get de­bate, the min­is­ter of fi­nance said they were go­ing to raise a bil­lion dol­lars on tax­es.

“This is not iso­lat­ed from what is clear­ly a gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy. Let’s go back to the traf­fic fines. I mean, just ab­solute­ly ridicu­lous.”