Shyne’s Take on Addressing Inflation Crisis

Shyne Barrow

The steep hike in the cost of basic food items, fuel and other essentials, remains an issue that the Government of Belize is grappling with.  Several measures have been put in place by the Briceño administration to curb the ever-increasing cost of living.  But is enough being done to meaningfully address the problem by effectively managing inflation?  That’s a question that was put to the Opposition Leader earlier today.

Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition

“I think the most important thing is finding a way to allow the cushion to be there.  That is first and foremost, to have a safety net that those that are hurting can find relief.  It is really inhumane and callous, the way this government goes about treating with the most vulnerable, treating with an eroding middle class and working class to ensure that they can face the brunt, they can face the tornado that is inflation.  We have an absentee prime minister, an absentee Minister of Human Development.  That would be the first thing.  The first thing is to accept that there are people suffering because of inflation and, as a government, we need to have a relief act, an inflation act to make sure that certain people that are suffering because of inflation, they get certain types of relief so that they can manage and weather this storm of inflation.  As far as the different technical things that you can do to ease inflation, to get us out of inflation, these are things that the governor of the Central Bank, you know, whether it’s related to interest rates, whether it’s providing a stimulus to the economy for people to have more access to financing for businesses, so many businesses are closing.  Something as simple as that, to make sure that businesses can go to the bank and get their facilities refinanced or to get extra capital so that they can sustain while we’re going through this.  Those are some of things that our government, our UDP government would do so that we can ease the burden of not just the working class, or the vulnerable, but also the business class.”