B.C.C.I. Says There Are Lot More Questions

Marissa Longsworth

Earlier this week, we told you about the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s letter to Prime Minister Briceño.  The B.C.C.I. wrote PM Briceño to share their concerns and recommendations regarding wage cuts in the public service.  Some have expressed that the more considerable problem is that a wage cut can have a ripple effect on the economy and livelihoods of those in the public sector.  Today, President of B.C.C.I. Marissa Longsworth shared some of those concerns, noting that there are areas that haven’t been adequately addressed through the consultations.

Marissa Longsworth, President, B.C.C.I.

“While we agree to the need for the drastic action that has to happen, as it relates to budget planning we are still yet to hear and even in our consultations, it was not clear relating to what stimulation is going to be provided. Even in terms, and you would have seen in our letter, even in terms of where would the savings go? If you do a cut, where are the savings from that cut going? Because if it goes, for example, into just paying debt then that means that the social construct of society when you have people that need more but are not able to pay for it themselves because their spending power is reduced, what will be put in place to stimulate growth in society to be able to bring the population to a good quality of life and good earning of livelihood? That also brings us to a very important point that the business community can’t ignore, which is the fact that especially in a time when we don’t have tourists coming in to spend their money, we rely heavily on spending within the local economy – any cut to public sector wages is a cut to gas stations; supermarkets; bill collectors; even the staycations for people to stay at home and vacation – the luxury of those sort of things disappear when you reduce the spending power of the populations. We have questions as it relates to whether if you save on the front end with cutting of salaries, what happens with GST collections if people are spending less?  What happens with business tax collections if the companies and entities are earning less because people are spending less? So, are we effectively filling the gap or are we filling it at one end but then causing a larger gap at the other end – so these are the types of questions that the Chamber feels haven’t been fully answered.”