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Mar 17, 2000

Budget debated in House

Story Picture
News of the riot, or protest, at the Hattieville Prison, stole some of the thunder today from the afternoon session of the budget debate in the House of Representatives. But radio news flashes and even comments in the House by the Representative from Mesopotamia Michael Finnegan didn’t interrupt the proceedings. At newstime, the presentations were continuing. Last week Prime Minister Said Musa laid out a budget of government expenditure of just over $461 million. For the second year in a row, there was a recurrent surplus and overall domestic operating surplus. Foreign funded capital three projects of $75 million will be funded by 21.7 million in grants and 53.3 in loans. He said on the revenue side, the sales tax had met expectations and consumers could look forward to even lower prices in the new fiscal year. Today members of his government supported the optimistic forecast and outlined the progress in the various ministries over the past year and their plans for the coming one. The Leader of the Opposition, Dean Barrow disagreed with the positive projections and claimed the government is actually trying to cover up for a shortfall. In fact, he says fancy accounting is concealing a deficit.

Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition

“That is why we in the opposition, can say with such certainty, madam speaker that the so call recurring surplus of $5 million is so bogus. Take away the almost $19 million extorted from the statutory bodies and add the more than $6 million in unpaid bills, and all of a sudden that surplus begins to look very much like a deficit, tricked out in fancy dress and deceitful budgeting. A $30 million deficit, a huge sucking incubus of a deficit, that sits astride this pretend budget, ready to devour growth economics…the growth economic charade and with it, the quality of life of the Belizean people.”

At newstime, the Prime Minister was making his presentation on the budget and addresses some of the criticisms leveled by the Leader of the Opposition. He said it is hypocritical of the UDP to talk about moving items to different headings in the budget to minimize shortfalls, since this was a common practice under their government. Regarding the trade deficit, the Prime Minister said there will always be a deficit but the key is to strike a balance between imports and exports. The Prime Minister said a major problem for small economies such as Belize is rising world oil prices. The P.M. said once again that privatization is necessary to help downsize the state and to allow the private sector to have a greater role in development and create investment opportunities for Belizeans.


Viewers please note: This Internet newscast is a verbatim transcript of our evening television newscast. Where speakers use Kriol, we attempt to faithfully reproduce the quotes using a standard spelling system.

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