Homeowners indebted to the Development Finance Corporation will soon get a shot at a big break. That’s the word from Cabinet which yesterday approved in principle a plan to allow borrowers of less than fifty thousand dollars to pay off their loans on the cheap. According to a Cabinet release, those with loans in arrears […]
In a surprising bit of good news for merchants–and presumably consumers–the Ministry of Finance today announced that all goods being imported into Belize between today and June thirtieth will not attract any Sales Tax. Geraldine Davis, coordinator of the G.S.T. Implementation Team, says that it’s a measure that will hopefully take the sting out of […]
You may be tired of hearing about it, and for many people the topic–to be truthful– is pretty boring. But that doesn’t change the fact that very soon the nine percent Sales Tax will be replaced by a new ten percent levy that looks a lot like our old friend called VAT. Alyssa Noble has […]
It has been a matter of controversy almost from the day oil was first discovered in Spanish Lookout less than a year ago. That is, how the ever increasing revenues would be shared between the company and the government. Today the question has finally been answered, as the House of Representatives approved legislation to levy […]
And while government was taking steps to maximize its share of future petroleum revenues, Belmopan turned to one of the world’s largest oil exporters for assistance in coping with its more immediate financial needs. While all agreed that the twenty-five million U.S. dollar low interest loan from Venezuela was good news, the transaction did not […]
It hasn’t generated quite the same buzz as the introduction of V.A.T. in 1996, but the impending implementation of the G.S.T. is finally sinking in. To see how the business community was gearing up, this morning I visited ground zero: Albert Street. Janelle Chanona, Reporting Across the country this month, Belizean businesses are offering big […]
Today government officials, representatives of the business community and unionists gathered in Belize City for a meeting of the Wages Council. The top priority on the agenda is a review of minimum wage levels in Belize. Latest statistics suggest that more than twelve thousand Belizeans currently earn the minimum wage, which is set at only […]
The concerns of SATIIM have highlighted similar feelings in Spanish Lookout following assertions by members of the Mennonite community that their patience is wearing thin with the negative aspects of oil exploration in their neighbourhood. Those impacts allegedly include sickness, the inconvenience of moving house and an increase in unwelcomed traffic of equipment and people. […]
Ten dollars and seventy one cents, that’s the new price of a gallon of premium gasoline in Belize City. Unbelievably, out in the districts that figure is even closer to eleven dollars. Today News Five’s Karla Vernon and Alyssa Noble stalked fuel pumps across the city and found desperate motorists trying to squeeze every possible […]
In news from the energy front, the Public Utilities Commission has issued a press release stating that its final decision on Belize Electricity Limited’s request of a rate hike has been denied. The P.U.C. had indicated as much in its initial response to the company but as per its protocols, waited ten days for comment […]
Latest reports out of Spanish Lookout are that Belize Natural Energy is recoding production of up to approximately two thousand seven hundred barrels a day from a total of four wells. Technicians have already begun work at Mike Usher number five and company officials say they have submitted a “field gathering pipeline system” to Belmopan […]
We didn’t receive this next piece of news via press release. No, we got it the hard way just like everybody else. I’m talking about fuel prices, which as of midnight Sunday reached a record high at gas stations all over Belize. The new price for super is a whopping ten dollars and forty-three cents […]
Belmopan continues to wrestle with the question of how to handle what it hopes will be a large and continuing flow of cash from the nation’s first oil find. Today, according to an official press release, cabinet set up a three man committee to direct government policy on petroleum, particularly on how to maximize G.O.B. […]
Shifting from the political to the economical, today the Prime Minister also commented on his administration’s ongoing negotiations with Belize Natural Energy and the recent oil find. Musa says his team is working on a formula that will see a fifty-fifty spilt of the profits. Said Musa, Prime Minister ?The briefing I?ve received from the […]
What a difference majority ownership makes. Barely twenty-four hours after Belize Water Services Limited announced its intention to seek rate hikes of almost nine percent, the company’s new ownerCthe Government of BelizeCsaid “nuttin like dat”. The turnabout was decreed by Cabinet today and conveyed to the public in its regular post meeting press release. As […]
In the corridors of power in Belmopan, Guatemala City, and Washington D.C. negotiations to end the territorial claim to Belize continues. But behind the scenes, the private sectors of both countries are also hard at work, trying to put political differences aside in the name of business and investment. A big plus is that the […]
It may not be as economically exciting as the discovery of oil, but in the sugar industry even the smallest piece of good news is important. The latest positive development comes in the form of an increase in the quota for Belizean sugar entering the United States. The twenty-five percent boost for the coming year […]
It may just be coincidence but following last week’s unprecedented budget briefing by the Financial Secretary and today’s petroleum presentation by the Ministry of Natural Resources, one gets the impression that a dangerous outbreak of transparency may have infected Belmopan. This morning for example, not only did the technicians at the Geology and Petroleum Department […]
When we think about Belizean export success stories, we think hot peppers and rum, but some Texans are here to find out what other spicy Belizean products or cottage industries can also go global. News Five’s Kendra Griffith reports. Kendra Griffith, Reporting Today?s trade mission is the continuation of an initiative that started last year […]
The 2006-2007 budget was passed into law this afternoon after the second day of debate. The new budget calls for expenditures of six hundred and sixty-seven point nine million dollars and targets a two point nine percent deficit. The 2006-2007 budget comes into effect on April first. And while the bill was passed without much […]
In comparison to last year’s budget, debated only a rock’s throw from a tense confrontation at the foot of Independence Hill, today’s 2006 version was predictably anticlimatic. The speeches from both sides of the aisle seemed more perfunctory than impassioned, perhaps out of political weariness following the municipal elections or a recognition that with little […]
Despite Barrow’s graphic metaphors, the government side of the house was not without some life of its own. The emphasis of the PUP presentation was less on the how we got here, than on where we are headed. For Minister of Works and financial point man Joe Coye, the budget’s greatest accomplishment was the process […]
Another thing not to be taken lightly in any budget debate are the words of Mesopotamia representative Michael Finnegan. Finnegan, who enshrined the mantra “Solomon, Smith and Barney” in Belize’s political vocabulary and whose marathon presentations to the House are legendary, this morning may have made the shortest budget speech of his career: less than […]
The Government’s Budget for the financial year beginning April first was presented last week … And over the course of tomorrow and Friday the Opposition will try its best to blow that document out of the water. But on the eve of the theatrics in Belmopan the press was today treated to a briefing by […]
If nothing else, today’s budget presentation was stark in contrast to February 2005 when tear gas and angry protests interrupted the proceedings in the House of Representatives. The police was out in force this morning, but inside and outside the House, the yearly financial report was distinctly anticlimactic. News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports from Belmopan. […]
