G.O.B. Embarks on Budget Consultations

John Briceño

“We will do everything possible not to retrench anyone.”  Those are Prime Minister Briceño’s words on Tuesday when speaking about budget preparation for the upcoming financial year.  In March, PM Briceño will present his first budget.  It will be a challenge considering the debt accumulated under the Barrow Administration; that revenue collection has decreased by thirty percent and the economy continues to struggle to get back on its feet.  It is no secret that the massive wage bill and the pension bill account for eighty percent of the budget.  So the government has tasked several of its ministers, supplemented by a technical team, to meet with Public Service representatives and the Belize National Teachers Union to discuss a way forward as part of budget consultations.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We are getting a hold of the entire situation. Today we had a presentation on the finances of the budget, how it has played it for 2020, 2021 and now we will start the budget consultations. We have set up two teams. We have asked Minister Fonseca and a previous minister of the public service to lead the consultations along with the Minister of Public Service, Minister Henry Charles Usher and the Deputy Prime Minister with a technical team to be able to meet with the Public Service Union and the teachers, the B.N.T.U. to have a discussion as to the presence situation and the way forward, how is it that we are going to address this massive fiscal imbalance that we have. Myself, along with Minister Coye, we will then, along with a technical team will be meeting with the private sector and the social partners. The facts are this, that the revenue that the government expected to collect it is down about thirty percent, over three hundred million dollars. The fact is that it took Belize as a country, government, seventeen years to be able to borrow a little of five hundred million dollars. This U.D.P. government in this fiscal year has dug a five hundred million dollars fiscal hole. What it took Belize seventeen year, the U.D.P. did it in one year. Five hundred million dollars, that is what we have to be able to address. So we need to be able to see how we work with our partners, the unions and the social partners and also with the private sector as to how is it we are going to be able to address this issue and be able to grow the economy. It has to do with growing the economy, collecting the revenue. We are not a government of retrenchment. We will do everything possible not to retrench anyone.”