Last week, economist, Dennis Chung told The Gleaner/Power 106 News he thought the tax on bank withdrawals was a "clever" move.



Since then readers on The Gleaner's website have been criticising him.



Here is the transcript of Chung's comments:



“The levy of the deposits on the withdrawals, which is the major source ... that I think is going to, where possible, move people more towards cash.



If you can, for example, bill and get cash from somebody, you might prefer to do that.



It's a clever move, the way they [Government] do it because obviously a lot of transactions go through the banking system.



This is certainly a painless way of getting it because you don’t notice it when it's happening because it’s very small.



The truth is that is not a lot of money.



People more might want to go towards cash because of the banking fees more than this [levy on withdrawals].



It's a clever move ... it’s a clever move the way they’ve done this.



I don’t really have a big deal with it.



If you pulling out a $100,000 and pay a $100 on it ... it’s not a big deal.



Maybe if you had greater competitiveness in the financial sector, for example with mobile money coming, it would drive down private fees anyway from a competitive point-of-view”



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