Budget Consultations Continue, G.O.B. Meets with B.N.T.U.
The government continued budget consultations today, preparing for the presentation of the budget in March. Today, a team of high-level ministers met with the Belize National Teachers Union. Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde and Ministers Francis Fonseca and Henry Charles Usher sat down with B.N.T.U. National President Senator Elena Smith and members of the executive. The government made presentations regarding the state of the nation’s economy. It has been a continuous declaration of the new administration that the country is in a financial chokehold. This evening the government released an Analysis of the State of the Nation’s Economy. The report states that Belize’s unemployment rate is more than triple the average unemployment rate throughout the Caribbean and more than quadruple that of Central America; that government revenues fell by almost thirty percent or over three hundred million dollars in 2020, and at one hundred and thirty-four point one percent, Belize now has the highest debt-to-G.D.P. ratio in the entire Caribbean and Central American region. The Briceño Administration says that it took the Barrow Administration one year to rack up a debt of over five hundred million dollars in 2020. Government debt has increased by almost two billion dollars. Prime Minister John Briceño and his P.U.P. government have the challenge of reviving the economy. Prime Minister John Briceño will present his first fiscal budget in a few weeks, so consultations with social partners in the public and private sectors are being held. Deputy Prime Minister Hyde says the meeting today was fruitful.
Cordel Hyde
Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister
“I think we’ve had very fruitful discussions, very positive discussion in the atmosphere of partnership because we are not enemies. We are partners. We have to be. It is not about P.U.P. and U.D.P. It is about being Belizeans and about trying to find right solutions to the challenging problems that we have. We have had long, healthy, fruitful, productive discussions and those discussions will continue.”
Hipolito Novelo
“Have the unions made proposals that the government is willing to consider?”
Cordel Hyde
“Yes, a ton load of proposals. They have been rather helpful in terms of cost saving measures, in terms of revenue enhancement measures that have been neglected over the long years of the U.D.P. They have been rather helpful. Some of those ideas we’ve had already but they’ve help up to fine tune those. Those discussion will continue and we look forward to at the end of the day reaching some sort of middle ground where we dispel of our shared responsibility, duty, obligation to the people of this country to come up with a workable, sustainable and very equitable home grown plane of recovery because we are at a bad place right now. I think it is very clear to all and it should be clear to all how bad things are in this country. We have sixty four thousand people who are unemployed. Another eighty-two thousand persons underemployed. Working but not enough. Really, really dire conditions.”
Hipolito Novelo
“Are the unions completely opposed to the wage cut or freeze?”
Cordel Hyde
“You would have to ask them that but to hazard a guess I think that at the end of the day we have said to them that everything is on the table. We are looking quite comprehensively at everything and that is the last thing we would want to do. So we are looking at everything else to make sure to try to put us in a position where we wouldn’t have to go there but ultimately if we have to go there we will make that case to them and they are prepared to listen to that. That is my impression.”
Hipolito Novelo
“Sir but Michael Peyrefitte is saying that the P.U.P. inherited a healthy economy?”
Cordel Hyde
“You know Michael Peyrefitte is a very funny guy right. I think he was joking. He had to be joking because everybody and their granny know how bad this area in this country. Must have been health for them but not health for the vast majority of people out here.”
