Budget will be presented Jan 14

With the clock ticking loudly on the need for concrete measures to reduce Government’s deficit, all eyes are focussed on the Prime Minister’s budget speech, which has been announced for Friday, January fourteenth. A press release following Tuesday’s cabinet meeting–the last to be held before the speech–reports that Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Said Musa presented provisional draft estimates of revenue and expenditure, but that those estimates will still require more fine tuning by the Ministry’s technical team.

If any decisions were taken regarding new taxes or spending, they were not released to the public, except to say that Government’s priorities will be health, education and the elimination of poverty. The release also states that staffing levels and staff costs will remain at current levels, which merely states the obvious: that the raise promised to public officers and teachers will be put on hold.

In a departure with tradition, but in recognition of political realities, the PM will discuss his proposed budget with business and labour groups before presentation to the House, most likely next week after the latest statistics have been gathered.

In other cabinet news, it was announced that the NHI programme will be maintained on the Belize District South side and will expand during 2005 to the Southern Stann Creek District and all of Toledo.