Cabinet: budget ready for March presentation

A release from Cabinet indicates that government has now finalised its draft budget for the 2007/2008 fiscal year, which begins on April first. That budget will be presented to the House of Representatives on March second with the debate set for March fifteenth and sixteenth. According to the release, details will be discussed next week with the members of the National Economic Council, a low profile body comprising representatives from government, labour, business, the productive sector, and University of Belize. With the near unanimous approval of the new superbond by the nation’s creditors, government’s billion U.S. dollar debt will now be rescheduled to free up some much needed short term cash. And while the numbers of the new budget will no doubt look sufficiently conservative to please the international financial community, it must be recalled that 2008 is an election year … when even the most fiscally responsible government finds it difficult to resist an unbudgeted spending spree.