A team of officials from the World Bank is in Belize and met earlier today with the Cabinet in Belize City. The team comprised representatives from the International Finance Corporation, I.F.C, which is the private sector arm of the bank, as well as from the bank’s International Development Association. That is a branch of the […]
Several areas of the Ministry of Education will be prioritized during the upcoming fiscal year. As Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca told us today that those areas include vocational/technical education, and expanding free education to southern Belize, among others. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education, Culture “Later this week, Thursday, we’ll be having a Special […]
Last week, the joint unions met with representatives of the government to discuss the increment freeze. The unions want their increments to be unfrozen and they have given April first as their deadline. The President of the Public Service Union, Dean Flowers, indicated last week that they were pleased with the humility of the government. […]
There were no reports of loss of life over the weekend; in fact, according to our archives, there was no gun violence recorded since last Monday. There is, however, a disturbing report of a sexual assault out west. The incident occurred on the fifteenth of February when a forty-five-year-old woman woke up to find that […]
The Belize Police Department recently activated a police substation in the Maya Mopan community on the outskirts of Belmopan. That twenty-four-hour presence by officers may have very well saved the life of Wilber Rivera, a resident of the area who was the victim of an attack by four persons, including three minors. Emilio Saqui, along […]
On Sunday, there was a brazen robbery of a businessman on Mahogany Street Extension in Belize City and it was allegedly committed by minors. Police say that the forty-two-year-old was sitting inside his vehicle when he was accosted by armed gunmen on bicycles. They stole two thousand dollars in cash and a phone. Quick response […]
Police have charged twenty-three-year-old Ryan McCulluch with attempted murder in connection with a shooting that occurred on February fourteenth in Ladyville. McCulluch is accused of opening fire on sixteen-year-old Kylee Gordon and twenty-year-old Harrison Parks on Edwin Parks Avenue in Ladyville Village. Sometime after seven that night, Gordon and twenty-one-year-old Orson Parks were walking in […]
Belize’s first human trafficking academy commenced today at Umaya Resort on the Placencia Road in southern Belize. Engaged in the week-long training are personnel from the justice sector, including human rights agencies, the Belize Police Department, the judiciary and other government departments as they are learning tools and techniques used in trafficking in persons investigations, […]
During her speech today, Minister of Human Development, Dolores Balderamos-Garcia said that while Belize has been doing well, there are more cases of potential familial human trafficking in Belize. The Chair of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIPS) Council was in southern Belize over the weekend and says that they may have identified a case of […]
Goodnight and welcome to another edition of Sports Monday. I am Paul Lopez. Belize has produced a number of outstanding athletes that have travelled abroad to play for teams in the U.S and around the world. Within the last ten years, we have been hearing about more and more young athletes across various disciplines travelling […]
Leader of the Belize Progressive Party, Wil Maheia, also weighed in on Ritchie’s case and what he feels is an unreasonable approach by the government to Belizean-owned bus companies. He believes that the companies are mostly Belizean families who have been providing the service for decades, and they should be given a chance to continue […]
On Thursday night, we reported that in late 2021 and early 2022, the Ministry of Finance approved a seventy-percent import duties and excise tax exemption for Floralia Limited to bring six 2022 Yutong buses in country. Since the news broke, Thomas Shaw, the President of the Belize Bus Association, has declared that the Government of […]
The International Monetary Fund has completed its first biannual visit to assess Belize’s economy, as we have been reporting. According to the information from the meetings with various ministers, government officials, and unions, the country has reduced its debt-to-G.D.P. ratio by more than half, from one hundred and thirty-three percent to sixty-three percent. According to […]
C.E.O. Doctor Osmond Martinez says that the economic recovery of the country is due to multiple initiatives. However, he acknowledges that the blue bond agreement allowed for a decrease of the sovereign debt by twelve percent and continues to have a ripple effect. Dr. Osmond Martinez, C.E.O., Ministry of Economic Development “It’s a combination […]
Despite the economic recovery, the benefits aren’t reaching the average Belizean. People can’t afford the things they were able to afford five years ago due to the rising cost of living. It’s a balancing act that Economic Development C.E.O. Doctor Osmond Martinez tries to put into perspective. He says that because Belize imports most of […]
Is the price of bananas going to go up? We have been reporting on the precarious situation in which the banana industry finds itself. The cost of fertilizers has skyrocketed, so fruit production has decreased. Then there is the higher cost of fuel to access the fruit from the farms in the south and also […]
This morning the Joint Union Negotiating Team and the Government met to discuss the pending issues raised by the unions at their press conference last week. Viewers will recall that the unions set an ominous ultimatum to restore increments by April first or else… The looming threat is that if the union’s demands aren’t met, […]
The sick out was not only at the Magistrates Court; our newsroom received reports came from other government departments, including the Treasury Department, which caused services to be temporarily delayed as replacements had to be found for the absentees. When the media caught up with the President of the Public Service Union, Dean Flowers, he […]
Minister of Public Service, Henry Charles Usher told the media today that as a government, they have to respect the right of public officers to express themselves as union members. But, he adds, the action taken by public officers today to call in sick has real effects on the delivery of service by these departments. […]
Similarly, Acting Prime Minister Cordel Hyde, whose brother is an active union leader, says that public officers have the right to express themselves democratically. Here’s how he puts it. Cordel Hyde, Acting Prime Minister “We respect that. We are functioning in a democracy. People have the right to agitate, people have the right to […]
And while public officers were calling in sick, their union leaders and members of the Joint Union Negotiating Team met with government ministers inside the Marion Jones Sporting Complex conference room. The closed-door meeting was to discuss the three main issues of contention: increments, pension reform, and the collective bargaining agreement. Acting Prime Minister Cordel […]
And while it may be interpreted as a kumbaya session, P.S.U. President Dean Flowers, who spoke on behalf of the Joint Unions’ Negotiating Team, says that they won’t be fooled again by G.O.B. Flowers references the negotiations of 2021, which ended with the government freezing their increments and cutting their salaries by ten percent. He […]
And what happens to the ultimatum – April first or else – that the unions issued last week for the reinstatement of increments? The unions believe their increments should resume with the economy rebounding and allowances returned to high-level government officials. Following today’s meeting, it would appear that there are different perspectives on whether that […]
The Prime Minister’s vehicle allowance came up in today’s discussion. The President of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize has stated that the Prime Minister needs to justify the increase in his transport allowance of four thousand dollars monthly. The PM has responded by saying he is using his personal vehicle and did not […]
A female teen and her twenty-one-year-old cousin are lucky to be alive tonight. That is after a gunman targeted them in Lords Bank Village. The shooting incident occurred last night around seven p.m. while the two were walking along Edwin Parks Street. It is believed that the shooting is in relation to another murder that […]
