PM Briceño Meets with IMF, Belize Receives Favorable Reviews

John Briceño

The Prime Minister and his team of financial advisors met with the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday to discuss Belize’s economic standing. While the I.M.F. looks favorably at the Briceño administration’s success in turning around Belize’s economic outlook, the ten percent salary cut which teachers and public officers received last year persists. According to P.M. Briceño, the Ministry of Finance is still trying to work out an amicable solution for the wage reduction.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Let’s talk about the reviews from the IMF.  Nobody expected our government to accomplish what it did in one year and as I told them, it is not only our work.  Yes, we had the ideas and we worked very hard to get it done, but also it included our public officers.  I mean, they went through tremendous sacrifice to be able to get us to where we are.  Now when it comes to the ten percent, today as we speak, the DPM and Minister of Education, I think Minister Usher is also meeting with the unions to discuss the ten percent.  We know that people are suffering, we know that people are punishing, we know that the cost of living continues to go up and it would be unconscionable if we would say, oh no, no, we’re not going to because of the IMF.  And I told the IMF that we also have a responsibility to our people, our citizens and we’re going through a difficult time, it’s not only about the numbers, financial numbers, but it is also about people.  How will we give them the ten percent?  We don’t know, that’s what we’re discussing with them and we feel that we would be able to come up with a compromise that everybody can live with.  But that’s what they are working on at this moment.”