P.M. presents revised budget to House
He called it “Facing Adversity Today – Shaping Tomorrow.” But adversity might be an understatement because the facts are clear: the country has a debt of over a billion dollars hanging over its head and is still reeling from recent national and world events. So today, it was a cautious but positive P.M. to take the podium as he outlined his plans to handle the crisis on our hands.
Prime Minister Said Musa
“In preparing this revised budget, we faced difficult questions and difficult choices. How do we cut costs and increase revenue in this new global economic reality without compromising our development agenda and our commitment to lifting those most in need up the ladder of economic opportunity on the way to a better life?”
“Each Ministry will be held to a commitment to reduce its telephone bill by twenty percent, and its electricity bill by ten percent.
Three, vacant posts in the public service not considered necessary will be abolished. There will, however, be no retrenchment of any serving public officer.
Four, effective immediately the system of granting automatic increments will cease. Increments must be awarded strictly on merit based on confidential performance appraisal.
Five, In the procurement of goods and services Chief Executive Officers and all accounting officers are required to curtail purchases of imported items and give special attention to facilitating the purchase of locally produced goods and services.
Six, The Government Printery and the Maintenance and Architectural Services of government will be converted into statutory bodies to eventually become self-generating income and profit centres. For the rest of this fiscal year during the transition phase, we have made provisions for these departments in the budget….these departments in the budget.
The following steps have been taken to increase revenue collection efficiency:
One, the Office of the Commissioner of Revenue will be charged with the correlation of real time data analysis and the monitoring of resource management in all revenue departments.
Two, the discretionary power of Ministers to waive duties and taxes will be restricted to charities, religious organisations, and educational institutions. This will be complemented by lowering the rates of Revenue Replacement Duties on vehicles.
Three, development concessions will no longer include exemptions from company tax, sales tax, or environmental tax.
Four, new Free Zone regulations will be implemented to assist foreign currency control and improve collections of social fees, taxes, freight and utility bills in the Zone that are now committed to be paid in U.S. dollars. Free Zone vehicles will now be required to pay Revenue Replacement Duty.
Five, the Ministry of Natural Resources will implement specific initiatives to encourage landowners to pay their taxes and to facilitate the conversion of leases on developed property to freehold titles.
Six, all collection points will now be open to the public from 8:00 to 5:00 on weekdays. No longer will the unacceptable practice of turning away those who wish to pay their bills be allowed to continue.”
But while the budget was passed by the house, the opposition was ready to voice its objections.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“You know what the figures of this revised budget do? Show basically that the government is up to its old tricks of underestimating expenditure and overestimating revenue.
The government, at the time of the I.M.F. report, promised, as I recollect, to improve recurrent revenue by fifty million dollars. Where is that in this budget? Even with their hocus pocus and even with their overestimate of what they’re going to get from Sales Tax, the revised figures show an increase of only four and a half million in the current revenue. But they made a solemn pledge to the International Monetary Fund, and to the Belizean people, and it’s there in writing, to increase revenue by fifty million. They had also…well if you’ll increase it by three million this year, you don’t even have three years left, but if you multiply three by three, that can’t give you fifty no way, no how. Madam Speaker, again this is the government’s usual smoke and mirrors performance, which by now everybody is on to. They must realise that when they put the Minister of Budget Management out there to crunch numbers, nobody is impressed anymore, nobody is impressed anymore, everybody recognises that the emperor has no clothes.”
Ralph Fonseca, Min. of Budget Management
“It is certainly nonsense today to say that the new conditions have very little to do with the economy of Belize. That is September eleventh and over the last three years, four storms, with over one billions dollars in damage. It is nonsense squared to say that the Belizean dollar is weak, when as the Prime Minister mentioned in his speech, we have over three months of import monies in our foreign reserves. And it is nonsense cubed to talk about a debt burden that is not manageable, when as you yourself admitted, we have some of the best debt managers in the world, some of the best market makers, some of the best investments bankers knocking down our doors to lend us more money. And it is downright duncy, to be talking like about danger and too risking when we’re talking about growth economics.”
