Musa Says Debt Profile of the Country Unsustainable

Said Musa

One particular area of interest to Musa is the debt profile of the country. He says that in 2008, the U.D.P. met manageable debt, and in less than ten years they have racked it up to a point where it is unsustainable.

Said Musa, Area Representative, Fort George

“When the U.D.P. came into office in 2008, the total external debt of the country was one point seven billion; that’s right, not what the member for Belmopan said a while ago. It is one point seven, the figures are right there. You only got to look at the budget of the very same Prime Minister Dean Barrow in 2008-2009…one point seven billion. Today after seven years of U.D.P. reckless and unaccountable spending and mismanagement of the debt, it is now two point seven billion dollars. Now unless something is terribly wrong with my addition, that is a one billion dollars more of debt accumulated by this U.D.P. government…one billion, with a B. This government has indebted the nation by one billion in seven years and that is not including the hundreds of million dollars—as the Leader of the Opposition reminded you all this morning. That does not include the hundreds of millions the government of Belize, which ever government is in power, will have to pay for the takeover of B.T.L. and B.E.L. Just think, Mister Speaker, it took successive governments from 1981, the time of independence, to 2008…twenty-seven years…it took us twenty-seven years to reach an external debt of one point seven billion dollars. It took the Barrow government seven years to virtually double the national debt. The U.D.P. has double the so-called super bond. So what are we going to call it now? With all the restructuring of the super bond, they have increased the debt by doubling the super bond.”