Unions disturbed by Government Press Release

Luke Palacio

Clearly stated in the agreement between both the unions and the government is that the monies be used to fund projects. But Castillo and National President of the Belize National Teachers’ Union, Luke Palacio, say that they were seriously disturbed by the release issued by the government because public officers are of the opinion that monetary compensations will be issued by the Trust.  Palacio says that the actions of the government seemed almost deliberate to cause mischief.

Luke Palacio, National President, B.N.T.U.

“Two things we need to point out initially here, when you look at the press release that came out of the Prime Minister’s office on the twenty-fourth of July. It is very misleading in two instances. If you look at the end of the second paragraph it says that these monies are to be held or to be used for projects that the trust would have had its beneficiaries agreed to. At the end of the press release, there is a statement saying that you go to the trustee for benefits payable to you and so that is misleading because that is not the intention of the trust. It is the government who when these agreements were penned back in 1996 specifically were told that this money was to be for projects in compensation for the suspension of the increments during those two years. So at no point is it to be understood that these monies would be to pay back individuals the increments they lost. Because when you look at the other correspondence at the time of the four hundred B shares that were given, it is said that they were valued somewhere around one point nine million dollars or two hundred thousand dollars. And if in 1995-1996, the increment of public officers and teachers and other government paid employees, nowhere it came near to what that increment cost to government would be. Increment to government cost on an average maybe six, seven, eight million dollars a year. So no way this amount of money that was held in trust could have been intended for you to pay out individuals as a number of them have interpreted. And we need to point out that it seems as it is deliberate on the part of the government so that the members of the unions, the beneficiaries can move way from what the real issues are. Because there is no way that no individual can be compensated in terms of being given that increment. We also need to point out that over those years where increments were frozen, individuals were given promissory notes and those were cashed so therefore that compensation has taken place. What we want the beneficiaries to know is that this trust must last a hundred and twenty years so the issue of sustainability is key. Additionally, even if it were to be that you wanted to put a monetary value on the increment that were frozen, then government should have been paying interests on that money so that you could now compensate those persons id that were the case.”