D.F.C. walkout protests Cabinet loan write-offs
Across the country today, employees of the Development Finance Corporation staged a walk out as part of a union sanctioned move against the Government owned lending institution. According to the Christian Workers Union, the seventy-two employees they represent in Belize City, Belmopan, Orange Walk and Dangriga left their posts to protest cabinet’s decision to discount and write off D.F.C. student and housing loans, without regard to their status, a move they claim severely weakens their already ailing institution. To explain their position, C.W.U. officials this afternoon held a press conference in Belize City. According to the union, the discount packages must be stopped until they can be properly packaged.
Emerson Burke, D.F.C. employee
?You walk into the D.F.C. with two point one million dollars. You are in effect forgiving nine hundred thousand dollars from somebody who can legitimately pay. That is the bottom line. It is flawed. It makes no sense.?
?Legitimate claims for relief ought to be given. Kudos to government for considering it, and kudos to government for offering it. But again, it cannot be said that someone who has gotten a student loan of sixty thousand or a hundred thousand to study law and is working in some prestigious law firm ought to be getting thirty percent off a student loan. And of course, that thirty percent will have to be met by the taxpayers of this country, who again were designed to benefit from the initiative in the first place.?
?We have not gone to the streets, we are not picketing. We are not protesting in that form, in that fashion. Our position remains that the Government of Belize need to come to the table with those who he promised, whom the government promised to sit with and dialogue. It needs to do the kind of analysis that is necessary with these kinds of decisions and to inform the general public. We are taxpayers in this place and we have a general stake. With regards to the duration, we have said it?s indefinite. And with that in mind, we will issue a letter to the Prime Minister this afternoon inviting him and the financial and audit committee to sit with us and to go back through the procedures that we started fifteen months ago. That was commitment given to us. Any major decision impacting on the institution would have been brought to our attention, and certainly not through some press release.?
