Joint Unions of Belize Call for Removal of FinSec Joseph Waight
Joseph Waight
First, the unions said both the U.D.P. and the P.U.P. had not done their jobs properly when in opposition. Now, they have called out the financial secretary for his own contribution to the fiscal disaster now confronting Belize. Joseph Waight has been the FinSec for three consecutive administrations. Despite this, the unions want him out. And not only Waight, but all of his staff over public service retirement age. News Five was there when leaders of the Belize National Teachers Union, the Public Service Union, the Association of Public Service Senior Managers and the National Trade Union Congress of Belize revealed that Waight failed to prepare public financial reports twice a year for almost a decade. P.S.U. first vice president, Dean Flowers says this responsibility was mandated in 2010.
Dean Flowers
Dean Flowers, 1st Vice President, P.S.U.
“Problems cannot be solved with the same mindset that created them. So for decades, we believed that the same prescription has been used over and over to solve a recurring problem of mismanagement and no accountability. And so we are saying changes must come and for that reason the joint unions received a very strong mandate that we ought to call for the removal of the financial secretary and his accompanying staff, especially those that are over the age of fifty-five. Why the financial secretary? In 2010, we knew we had a problem. We knew we had a problem under the Musa Administration that ended in 2008. The I.D.B. came in to assist us and that’s why they passed S.I. 95 of 2010; the Fiscal Transparency and Responsibility Regulations of 2010. The objective of that regulation was to force the financial secretary to give us a snapshot of government fiscal strategy and government fiscal position twice a year. So we were to have been receiving a fiscal outlook, mid-year review report and a final budget outlook report. Detailed in that report would have been government expenses, government revenues, government assets, government liabilities and also the assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses of every single statutory body out there that government is giving monies to and we don’t know how they are performing. We have no clue how most of these revenue generating statutory bodies are performing. We don’t see the publication of any financial statements, similar to us not seeing any where the government finances are confirmed. So it is our view that the financial secretary has breached, not breached, but he is in violation of the S.I., of the law, similar to the former prime minister and he needs to be held accountable. If in 2011, had the financial secretary come and give a snapshot of the financial position of this country as he should have, we could have been monitoring this financial mess real time, real numbers because the regulation also calls for him to publish it in the gazette and to publish it on a government website. The regulations also require of him to give detailed explanation to whether or not there was a deviation from the budget, how much that deviation was, explain how it will help or hurt the country. So that from 2011, twice a year, we would have been cautioned and shown the numbers.”
According to Flowers, S.I. ninety-five of 2010 also demands that the FinSec gives a report of the total number of permanent and temporary employees in the public service system.
