P.U.P. Leader Says Budget’s Short, Empty and Full of Political Rhetoric

Francis Fonseca

With that out the way, P.U.P. Leader Francis Fonseca got the budget debate started. He lashed out in short order, stating that not only was the 2015-2016 Budget the shortest ever, it is also the emptiest. According to Fonseca who pointed to the rising cost of basic goods, PM Barrow’s budget is actually devoid of anything but political rhetoric.

Francis Fonseca, Leader of the Opposition

“While real income falls, the price of basic goods continues to rise. In the past year alone, red kidney beans up seventy cents from two-twenty-five to two-ninety-five a pound; baking powder up  a dollar ten, from two-o-nine to three-nineteen; local vinegar up from one-eighty-nine to one-ninety-five; luncheon meat and chopped ham up twenty cents from three-ninety-five to four-fifteen; corn beef up fifty cents from four-o-nine to four-fifty-nine; local jam up a dollar six from four-thirty-nine to five-forty-five; evaporated milk up from one-seventy-five to two-twenty-five; condensed milk up from one-ninety-nine to two-thirty-five; soap powder up one-thirty-six, from two-forty-nine to three-eighty-five and we could go on and on, Mister Speaker. That is the Belizean U.D.P. reality today and the 2015-2016 Budget; Mister Speaker offers no relief, no answers, no hope of anything better to come. Mister Speaker, the 2015-2016 Budget is a ‘borrow and spend’ budget. It is a budget founded upon no consultation, as usual, and grounded in no economic development plan; it offers no new investments in the Belizean economy…no new tourism projects, no new agricultural investments, no manufacturing projects, no new investments in housing development, no investments in arts and culture, youth and sports; no tax reform; no governance reform.”