Deputy Leader of the Opposition denounces budget

Mark Espat

The Prime Minister read a list of goods from which he intends to remove import duties.  The list includes:  cooking oils, luncheon meat, potted meat, macaroni and cheese dinner, and cereals.  The P.M. also said that the government would remove General Sales Tax on similar items.  But if you don’t intend to eat canned goods, it’s bad news for your palate.  Nevertheless, Mark Espat, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, compares the tax relief efforts to a poorly crafted magic trick, and that the budget measures will cripple commercial banks as a patient dying on the operating table.

Mark Espat, Deputy Leader of the Opposition

“When you look at the figures you will see that the overall increase in projected revenue from this year to next year is nothing less than a hundred and ten million dollars. The government is proposing several tax measures, the biggest one of which is forty-two million dollars from the GST, ten million dollars in taxes from the increase in business tax on the electricity provider and a slew of smaller measures of taxes. The bottom line is that whatever tax relief is miniscule—ten million dollars I believe compared to a hundred and ten in new revenue. So there is no doubt that this will bring a greater contraction in the economy and greater hardships for the people in our view.”

Jose Sanchez

“When it comes to the central bank bill and treasure bills, is your reaction still the same, “smoke and mirrors?” as you said earlier?”

Mark Espat

“The prime minister did not address the underlying issue. The underlying issue of why is it necessary to increase the by two hundred and fifty million dollars the capacity of government to borrow; that is the net increase. That issue was not addressed at all. There were all kinds of distractions, smoke and mirrors, avoiding the principal issue. The government is increasing its limits currently at one hundred and seventy-five million to four hundred and twenty-five million dollars; that was not addressed at all in the debate today.  How did the budget last year? And clearly there is a twenty million or a forty million percent overall increase in the deficit that the government projected on the one hand. On the other hand, this year the government is expecting to balance its way, to bridge its deficit by a slew of increases in taxes, which will only thrust more Belizeans into poverty and to actually reduce its projected capital investments. That, after spending less than three quarters of what it had promised would be spent last year. And so there’s bad news last year and there’s even worse today. The equivalent of what his is that the patient is on the operating table hemorrhaging and instead of giving the patient blood, the government is withdrawing blood from the patient. It makes no sense at all.”

Jose Sanchez

“So if you take in account the positive things such as the goods that won’t be taxed, the less than twenty-four thousand dollars removal of income taxes, how do they weigh against overall debts and expenses that we’re going to be seeing?”

Mark Espat

“Well, Jose, we don’t even have to do the calculations. The prime minister gave us in the speech his bottom line. The bottom line is that on one hand he is giving ten million dollars in relief and in the other hand, he is taking a hundred and ten million dollars in new overall taxes or sixty-two million dollars in net tax increases. So the bottom line is clear that you are taking more from the patient than you’re prepared to give.”

More on the budget when we come back, including the choice words used by the prime minister on his predecessor.