HOR Addresses Outstanding Salary Adjustments for B.D.F.

Prime Minister John Briceño

The Leader of the Opposition says that a group of retired Belize Defense Force soldiers are claiming that they are being denied a salary adjustment that was approved under the U.D.P. According to the opposition leader, those retirees have been waiting for up to fourteen months for compensation in accordance with the salary adjustment, to no avail. This morning, Opposition Leader Moses “Shyne” Barrow asked Prime Minister Briceño when his administration will recognize the salary adjustment. Here is how the prime minister responded.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Again I would have hoped that the leader of the opposition would have withdrawn the question because I don’t want to embarrass him. But what I will do, since he could not comprehend what a standard six child would comprehended  if I explained it, I will send you the answers so that you could study it maybe ten time and understand it. In 2019, under UDP, the government agreed to regularize the rate of annual increments of enlisted soldiers, 2019. They also agreed to extend the salary scale for officers. When the Ministry of Finance sent out the circular on this matter, they stated that this revision was not a salary increase nor was it intended to be a salary increase. 2019, mind you. What it was then, it was a salary adjustment and standardization exercise. The memo went even further to explain that any increase in the rate of pay that arise from this was a part of the regularization exercise. In implementing this some mistakes were made. Some officers at the rank of private were placed way up on the pay scale. Follow me so far? For example, they were supposed to be placed at the beginning of the pay scale, but instead were moved several places up the pay scale. When the ministry realized the error they informed those and adjusted the pay scale. If the leader of the opposition was a competent leader we would have never brought this question. He should have asked his party chairman who was then the Minister of the BDF. Remember they had shortage of camouflage cloth. I hope he could have explained it to him. He could have also asked the former prime minister who was the Minister of Finance and they would have told him that no increments was withheld from BDF, simple.”