CHIEF Minister Frank Walker could face a vote of censure over his criticism of the recent GST petition – the largest in Channel Islands history – criticism which has been rejected by the Jersey Consumer Council.

More than 19,000 people signed the JCC’s petition calling for the implementation of the tax to be stalled until a proper look into alternative taxes has taken place. The petition, which bore several thousand signatures more than the Millennium Town Park petition, called upon Treasury Minister Terry Le Sueur to hold off the new 3% tax, due to be levied from May, until an independent savings study had been carried out, and alternative taxes had been investigated. Senator Walker told guests at a Jersey Chamber of Commerce lunch on Wednesday that there were ‘big questions’ about the validity of many of the signatures, and that ‘the organisers made no attempt to spell out why zero-ten had to be introduced in the first place’.