Barrow sceptical about “rebalancing”
Before Fonseca could even catch his breath after his hour-long narrative, Leader of the Opposition Dean Barrow was already punching holes in the budget speech, saying it is riddled with deception.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“The fact that taxes are being increased, there is going to be an across the board increase in sales tax of one percent, and in addition, some categories, remember that right now there is two-tiered sales tax rate in place, so the lower rate of eight percent is going to go up across the board by one percent and the higher rate that’s limited to specified categories of goods, that category is going to be expanded. So the overall picture is that there is going to be a significant increase in the tax burden that Belizeans will have to bear. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that where the numbers are concerned about things like recurrent expenditure, I don’t believe them. The fact is that the budget is being presented now in January so that there is no chance at all at looking at the last quarter numbers and any projections that are made have to be unrealistic. I know for a fact that suppliers all over this country have been complaining bitterly about the fact that they can’t get paid, so when government says, “oh our recurrent expenditure for the year is only X amount of dollars,” I don’t believe the numbers.”
Barrow also had doubts about Minister Fonseca’s emphatic pronouncement that there will be no retrenchment, and that wastage on government vehicles will be curtailed. He says all this must be taken with more than a grain of salt.
Dean Barrow
“These are cosmetics, you are talking about Band-Aids that in any event have proven in the past not to be doable. From time immemorial we keep hearing governments say they will do something about vehicles. Whether it is to effect a change over to smaller vehicles that consume less fuel, or whether it’s just going to design a system to deal with the abuse of government vehicles. We keep hearing the same song, but it never seems to work. So if that is what government is saying it is basically going to rely on to try and cut recurrent expenditure, that really is nonsense.”
“If you can read between the lines, no retrenchment but there is this team set up to conduct a management audit of the public service in terms of trying to determine where skills are not properly being utilised and positions might be superfluous, that’s code for retrenchment. It is in the same way as the minister saying, not that there is going to be an increase in taxation that no, that a rebalancing exercise is being done, these are code phrases to disguise the true reality. And again, earlier I had complained about the Casas de Cambio, the minister said, “Oh no, there is no problem.” Now he announces formally in the speech that they are going to have to tighten up on the violations and increase reporting requirements, conceding after the fact that there has been a problem.”
Following the budget presentation, members of the opposition raised several issues ranging from football to the sale of B.T.L.. Barrow says he will take the next two weeks to carefully go over the budget speech and when he comes back to the House on February sixth, expects to have even more to say about the draft estimates.
