Patrick and Said Spar over Budget
Never one to pass on an opportunity to land a few solid jabs on his political opponents, former Prime Minister Said Musa also went in on government for its infrastructure-heavy budget. While PM Barrow boasted about the estimates for infrastructure, the excess borrowing, says Musa, will continue to bloat the national debt by almost ninety-six percent of GDP. In his response, Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber struck back, recalling the days under the previous administration when former PM Musa came under fire from his cabinet.
Said Musa
Said Musa, Area Representative, Fort George
“In his budget presentation on Friday, March 15th, 2019, the prime minister in a feeble, soto voce, almost inaudible tone admitted that his prodigal, reckless spending, profligate government had borrowed and spent so extravagantly that the public debt was now $3.6 billion dollars, or ninety-three point six percent of GDP. Three point six billion, according to the prime minister, some two billion, according to the minister from Belmopan who contradicted his prime minister. According to the IMF, however, it’s more like ninety-six percent of GDP, not ninety-three point six. Whatever rate, Mr. Speaker, I forgot we don’t have a Madame Speaker right now, at the rate this government continues to borrow for grandiose infrastructure projects, like the coastal highway project, the airport link over to mile eight, and the Caracol superhighway. At that rate of borrowing which is like another over four hundred million dollars, our country will soon be indebted up to one hundred percent of the entire gross domestic product. The prime minister is proud to say that the Belizean economy will soon generate an annual output which is GDP, of four billion. What he did not mention is that during this same time under this U.D.P. government, the debt will increase to four billion dollars.”
Patrick Faber
Patrick Faber, Area Representative, Collet
“This man presided over all that went so terribly wrong in this country’s economy. So much Mr. Speaker, that in fact, his own, I listened just now as he spoke about the prime minister in crisis and in fact the level of corruption in his party, in the government’s party right now, is at such a high level that the prime minister doesn’t know what to do. In fact, he calls out on God, as he puts it. He conveniently forgets, Mr. Speaker, the occasion of his own cabinet’s uprising against him, when no other than my friend, the now Leader of the Opposition, and my friend I am sure, from Lake Independence, was a part of that number and others who said to him that you, Mr. Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, we don’t trust you, and they walked out of the cabinet.”
