Minister Fonseca presents budget
The 2004-05 budget was presented today in Belmopan and the man doing the presenting was none other than the Minister of Finance, Ralph Fonseca. Fonseca insisted that despite criticisms, G.O.B. stayed within its budget last year and intends to do so again this year. Education and health will be the priorities and the expectation is for tourism to make significant contributions to the national economy once more. He says there will be some belt tightening, beginning with government ministers. Patrick Jones reports.
Ralph Fonseca, Minister of Finance
“Madam Speaker, this year’s budget will keep Belize free!”
Patrick Jones, Reporting
He’s the first man other than the Prime Minister to make a budget presentation in the House of Representatives in the history of independent Belize. Minister of Finance, Ralph Fonseca, spent roughly half of his sixty-five minute budget speech reviewing the country’s economic performance in 2003.
On the export side, Fonseca said that with the exception of marine products, earnings were again led by sugar, banana, and citrus.
Ralph Fonseca
“With a four point six percent increase in sugar export volume, revenues rose by eleven point eight percent to seventy-three point seven million dollars as prices strengthened in almost all markets. Marine exports rose by forty million dollars to one hundred and ten point two million dollars as farmed shrimp rebounded from the Taura virus and hurricane setbacks. Extensive replanting of damaged plantation and investments aimed at improving field irrigation and drainage resulted in banana exports of seventy-four thousand, nine hundred and thirty-five metric tons valued at fifty-two point six million dollars.”
Tourism also made its contribution with a ten percent growth in overnight and eighty percent more cruise arrivals in 2003. And the prospects for 2004 Fonseca says are expected to best last year’s performance with a projected thirty percent increase in cruise ship passengers and overnight arrivals going up by between four and six percent. The trade deficit last year stood at six million dollars, most of which was due to higher acquisition prices for fuel imports.
And with over two months still left in the current fiscal year, Fonseca says final figures will prove that despite over a billion dollars spent on capital projects, salary increase for public officers and the computerisation of its accounting system, G.O.B. did stay within budget.
Ralph Fonseca
“This all calculates to a recurrent surplus of sixty-three point one million dollars and an overall deficit of thirty-two point five million dollars, comparing well to a budgeted overall deficit of thirty-four point four million dollars. Calculated against G.D.P., this translates to a two point one four percent overall deficit well within our target of staying below three percent of G.D.P.”
Then he turned to projections for 2004, saying he expects the same level of economic performance over the next twelve months, beginning on April First.
Ralph Fonseca
“Based on this year’s performance, the new rebalancing measures and conservatively projected growth of four percent, we have estimated some four hundred and ninety-one point three million dollars in recurrent revenue and four hundred and twenty-four point four million dollars in recurrent expenditure. This should provide a recurrent surplus of sixty-six point nine million dollars. Capital Two Expenditure will be held to fifty-two point three million dollars and capital three expenditure to seventy point three million with some twenty-two million in capital revenue and grants.”
Fonseca says there is something for every Belizean in this year’s budget.
Ralph Fonseca
“First of all, he is hearing, he or she are hearing that in fact there are so many more millions of dollars being allocated to education and health, and those must be our priorities. And as I said, we are up to like over a one hundred and twenty-seven million dollars now for education and over forty million for health. So that takes us way, way past where we ever dreamt we would be able to get at this time.”
And what’s driving the Belizean economy?
Ralph Fonseca
“The big story continues to be tourism. But in the export sector it has been shrimp, marine products in general but shrimp farming in particular which almost quadrupled last year and we are expecting for it to double again this year. That has been significant because it has a lot of other effects on the economy and it employs quite a few people. Tourism again by us making some of they bold decisions that we made with the Belize Tourist Village, putting in some of the infrastructure that cost us quite a bit of money, like I said we invested a billion dollars in the infrastructure of Belize during those five years fighting hurricanes, but also getting the economy in shape so that all two hundred and seventy thousand Belizeans can move around more efficiently and also can get a chance at these opportunities.”
And in case Belizeans think they are the only ones making sacrifices, Fonseca says just wait and see what he and his colleagues in Cabinet do in 2004.
Ralph Fonseca
“If I don’t need my S.U.V., which I think I don’t need in my case because I don’t go out as often, I am pretty much captured in my office in Belmopan and at the Central Bank, as you know. I’ll be converting my S.U.V., which incidentally was given to me by the police because they captured it from some criminal. That S.U.V. will be sold off and I will have a diesel driven vehicle. So hopefully I will be more efficient myself. It might be a little less convenient for my assistant and myself, but I think we have to lead the way. We have to show that we are leading by example. In the case of the public service, we have this management audit. We have been talking about it, individual ministers have been trying to do as best they can, some C.E.O.’s have done as best they can, but in general we haven’t gotten it right, so we’re saying this is the time now when things are better. When we are not fighting hurricane when we are not fighting the effects of terrorism. We have some time now to settle down and really get this thing right.”
Patrick Jones, for News 5.
