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The Tax Services Department is the recently amalgamated cluster of the Income Tax and Sales Tax Departments - and, tonight, it's running into major static from the Public Service Union.  

The PSU warns that all is not well within the newly amalgamated department. And, the Union says, quote, "employees of the Belize Tax Services Department remain uneasy and not fully sensitized on the amalgamation process communication is poor and is indicative of a deficientchange management team and strategy which leads us to caution that the organizational changes are bound to fail."  End quote.

A lot of the criticism has been leveled against the Financial Secretary Joe Waight who met with the union in July.

Now, the union is meeting with the staff of the Department - and today, Waight told us he is aware and wants to address the issues:

Joseph Waight - Financial Secretary
"The meeting just happened yesterday evening. I have had no report as to the outcome of that meeting. But in general, the Unions have expressed some concerns regarding the placement of certain officers within the new amalgamated department. But, beyond that, I can't really say what the specific concerns are because I have not been part of the dialog. We want to address them. We want to ensure that there's fairness equity, and nobody's rights are in anyway stepped. But at the same time, we have to organise a department along functional lines, so that we can provide better services to the tax-paying public."

One of the Union's major complaints is that the Ministry of Finance was supposed to have set up a Project Steering Committee - with union input - to manage the amalgamation, but, the PSU claims, it hasn't been given the notice of a single meeting.