Christmas Cheer This Year…Remixed and Reduced

Dean Barrow

For many Belizeans, perhaps a sad testimony of our times…Christmas isn’t Christmas without Christmas Cheer. It’s a program in which politicians hand out money to some of their constituents to help tide them over and to gain favour during this season. To some it’s distasteful, to politicians it’s necessary and to those few who benefit, it’s like manna from heaven. According to PM Barrow, there won’t be quite as much manna falling this year because there’s not as much unattached money to go around.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“There are all sorts of additional liabilities now that we have to look at…the Civic Centre which is going to be thirty off million dollars, the three tourism roads. We know that there is going to be the arbitration award with respect to the shares acquisition in BTL. I have also indicated that if there is any money left over after we satisfy all those liabilities from out of Petrocaribe, I want to see some debt buyback take place. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be able to squeeze a few dollars here or there to continue with social programs…just not in the level that we saw formerly. But we can never completely let go of our commitment to help those at the margins by way of social assistance. So there will be a level of Christmas cheer this year…just not as robust, as bounteous, as plentiful as last year.”

Generally how it works is that U.D.P. area representatives receive twice as much as P.U.P. area representatives to give out. Unelected U.D.P. caretakers, as they are called, receive the same as P.U.P. area representatives.