A debate on the budget is an opportune time to review the state of the Belizean economy and the state we are in as a country 31 years after we achieved political independence as a nation. The Barrow Administration came into office in 2008 with great promise. They promised a 6% annual growth after inheriting an economy that had more than doubled to $2.5 billion dollars in goods and services under the PUP government (1998-2008). During the PUP years, the annual average growth rate was 5%. Even if we take account of the 5% GDP growth in 2012 claimed by the Prime Minister, the average growth rate for their five years is 2.6%.

1. NOTES ON THE BUDGET 2013-14
By Rt Hon Said Musa
Mr. Speaker:
A debate on the budget is an opportune time to review the state of the
Belizean economy and the state we are in as a country 31 years after we
achieved political independence as a nation.
The Barrow Administration came into office in 2008 with great
promise. They promised a 6% annual growth after inheriting an economy
that had more than doubled to $2.5 billion dollars in goods and services
under the PUP government (1998-2008). During the PUP years, the annual
average growth rate was 5%. Even if we take account of the 5% GDP
growth in 2012 claimed by the Prime Minister, the average growth rate for
their five years is 2.6%.
You see Mr. Speaker instead of building on the hard earned primary
surplus in the budget left by the PUP, with a fiscal deficit of less than 1%,
they proceeded to squander the accumulated debt service savings secured
by the PUP in the first debt restructuring. The total net cash flow relief
secured by the PUP administration was US$481.5 million for the period
2007-2015 of which $180 million in immediate savings in debt service
benefitted the UDP Government when they assumed office in 2008.
Instead of investing these savings in projects that would increase
production, grow the economy and create jobs for our people, they
squandered on wasteful spending and feathering the nests of family
members and their cronies.

2. 2
As a result from 2009 to the present the Prime Minister has never
been able to balance his budget. There has been a fiscal deficit every year
and a financing gap ranging from $151 million in 2009 to 139.8 million last
year 2012. Now despite his hollow boast of a 5% growth last year he
presents a budget for 2013/14 with another gaping hole of $127.1 million
dollars. Is this onward and upward? Or is it backward and downward?
I cite these numbers as an example of the phony rhetoric that
permeated throughout the budget presentation made by the Prime Minister
on March 1, 2013. He speaks of “adroit stewardship” and his “unshakeable
commitment to the welfare of the nation.”
But the reality in Belize today is that the masses of the Belizean people
are sinking deeper and deeper into poverty. The cost of living keeps going
up higher and higher. The grocery bill, the light bill, the water bill, the rent,
the mortgage payment, the school fees, the medical expenses all have
become a heavy burden which the bottom half of the population mired in
poverty and misery are finding it increasingly difficult if not impossible to
bear.
The unemployment rate went up to a staggering 24%. When the PUP
left office it was 8%. According to the statistics gleaned from the Statistical
Institute of Belize, close to 30,000 young Belizeans, many of them high
school and Sixth Form graduates, cannot find a job. Is this onward and
upward? Or is it backward and downward?

3. 3
The salaries and wages of public officers, teachers, nurses, doctors,
police officers and BDF soldiers and pensions have been frozen for the past 5
years. (There were three annual salary increases of 8% for junior officers
and 5% for senior officers provided during the PUP administration).
As for the hollow mantra of no new taxes, the Prime Minister would
want us to forget the massive tax increase that they imposed on imported
fuel. Remember the $1.00 per gallon additional tax on gasoline and diesel.
Remember what he said, he will keep the price of diesel below $6.00 and
gasoline below $7.00. $30 million in additional fuel tax on the backs of the
people every year. The price of gasoline shot up to over $12.00 a gallon.
Premium gas is now $12.20 and diesel $10.71. Then there was the increase
in Business Tax on the supply of electricity from 1.75% to 6.5% to raise an
additional $10 million from B.E.L. (when it was privately owned). As soon as
the Government took over B.E.L. they reverted back to the 1.75% tax. The
Belizean people were promised light bills would go down with nationalization.
But as a New Year’s gift for 2013 the Government owned B.E.L. slapped on
an additional 17% increase. The PUC proposed that the Government should
pay part of the increase on street lighting. But the pro-poor UDP
Government said let the people pay for it.
Then there was the whopping 25% increase on the GST from 10% to
12.5% to raise an additional $42 million on the goods and services the
people must pay for.
Then there was the levy of 5% on the value of goods and services
imported into an Export Processing Zone.

4. 4
It is a cruel slap in the face of the people to boast: no new taxes,
when property tax and trade licenses have been jacked up, doubled, even
trebled.
Even the cost of burial has escalated with the City Council becoming
grave-diggers. Is this onward and upward? Or is it backward and downward?
While they pat themselves on the back for the growth in tourist
arrivals, the official figures for earnings from tourism are not so impressive.
The actual tourism inflows was only $215 million. Compare that to the last
year of the PUP Administration in 2007 when the Tourism inflows was $289
million - $74 million more in earnings in 2007 (according to the figures in
Annex 1 Select Indicator put out by the Ministry of Finance, Statistical
Institute of Belize and the Central Bank of Belize).
Is this onward and upward? Or is it backward and downward?
In short, the budget performance of the Government is dismal and
shockingly deceptive. The Prime Minister tries desperately with his fancy
rhetoric to create an impression of growing prosperity. In reality there is
growing poverty.
If there was a real 5% growth in the economy, why is it that the
teachers and public officers cannot get their salary adjustment?
If there was a real growth in the economy, how come business houses
continue to retrench; the bank foreclosures continue; more people lose their
jobs.

5. 5
If there was real growth in the economy, how come the employers and
workers Social Security money had to be used to the tune of $50 million to
prop up the government owned B.T.L.?
The truth is that there was growth in the size of the bureaucracy,
growth in the perks and benefits to the political elite in the ruling party, their
legal advisors, their family members and select cronies.
Like the $14.9 million paid out for legal fees and professional services
to the privileged ones. Another $14.6 million paid to the over 300 high paid
Contract Officers but for the vast majority of Belizeans the growth and
prosperity was artificial.
It is not our border that is artificial. It is the inflated figures in the
budget presentation. There is nothing artificial about border from the Hondo
to the Sarstoon. Nothing artificial about the border monuments at Gracias a
Dios at Garbutt’s Falls and Aguas Turbias.
What is artificial is the lot of hot air spewing out of the mouth of the
Foreign Minister. What is hypocritical artifice is when they try to deify the
late Philip Goldson and didn’t even have the decency to pay for his funeral.
It was the PUP that honoured him posthumously and the Hon. Max Samuels
who paid for the bricking of his grave. They did not even want to pay the
sculptor for the Goldson bust which was knocking around from pillar to post
for years.

6. 6
That’s the difference between the PUP, a party that practices
meritocracy, care and concern for all Belizeans and the UDP a party whose
leadership practices rampant nepotism for family and friends and blatant
victimization and demonization of political opponents.
Even in his budget presentation which should be a serious discourse on
the country’s finances and the state of the economy, the Prime Minister with
his boorish arrogance could not resist his inherent proclivity to be nasty
describing the opposition members as having a “vermin-like behavior” and
equating our souls to excrement. Mr. Speaker if it is not unparliamentary
language forbidden under our Standing Orders to describe members as shit
in this Honourable House, then I fear our National Assembly will have
become a cess-pool of vulgarity at the instance of this Prime Minister.
CRIME
I turn now Mr. Speaker to what is perhaps the single most disturbing
challenge facing our nation. Crime and violence threaten the welfare of our
citizens everywhere, no more so than in Belize City. Crime generates a
climate of fear and diminishes the nations’ growth and development.
Violence breeds violence and the social and political instability resulting can
and do lead to economic collapse and a failed state.
I find it distressing that in a budget presentation of 39 pages mostly
esoteric rhetoric, the Prime Minister could only devote two short paragraphs;
5 sentences to this issue – what he calls citizens security. He says: “we will
continue to fight the scourge of crime, which despite our best efforts, casts
its increasingly low shadow over our entire society, but especially over urban
youth.”

7. 7
This “increasingly long shadow” Mr. Prime Minister, falls on the
hundreds of grieving parents who have lost their sons to gun violence. It is a
long shadow which has branded our country of Belize with one of the highest
murder rates, per capita, in the entire region. Over 140 murders in 2012.
In less than 3 months this year we already have a reported 24 murders.
Few of the murders are solved; few of those accused of murder are
convicted. The Prison system is disproportionately filled with persons on
remand or persons convicted of drug-related offences. The majority of
prisoners are male and well under 30. They are young men and a few young
women who have failed at school or have been failed by school. They are
mostly poor and they have weak family links. The entire Justice System is in
crisis said the learned Chief Justice at the recent opening of the Supreme
Court.
So what is the Government’s response to this disastrous state of
affairs?
 Last year in 2012 the Ministry of National Security’s Police
Recurrent budget was cut by over $8 million dollars.
 Even the Patrol Branch in Belize City was cut by $600,000.00.
 The Prosecution Branch by $500,000.00.
 The Police Training School cut by $1 million.
 Scenes of Crime Unit by over $230,000.00.
 The Crime Intelligence Unit by over $260,000.00.
 Community Policing by $350,000.00.

8. 8
 The BDF which has been mandated not only to patrol and protect
our borders but also to assist the police in crime prevention and
detection – their budget was cut by over $2.5 million.
 The Capital II Budget was also cut in 2012 by some $2.5 million.
 Intelligence gathering was cut by over $250,000.00.
 Capital Improvements to police stations cut by $750,000.00 – no
improvements - the entire budget cut.
 Purchase of equipment for the police cut by $400,000.00. Even
police building maintenance was cut out.
 The Forensic Lab & equipment budget was cut from $300,000.00
to $58,000.00.
PUBLIC DEBT
The Prime Minister has spent the last several months blowing his tuba
about the debt restructuring that his government has carried out.
With all the umpa, umpa gushing from that baritone tuba, you would
think Mr. Speaker that the government has solved all our debt problems with
what the Prime Minister in a fit of hubris called “a Houdini-like performance”.
The last time he compared himself to the Greek mythological demi-God – A
“Prometheus Unbound” back in 2008 who would “go for broke” we all
remember what happened. The Barrow administration drove Belize into a
deep hole of recession.

9. 9
Now in 2013 the dear Prime Minister is once again fantasizing as an
Olympic champion taking a victory lap with “laurels and garlands” much in
evidence.
But it is time for a reality check. At the end of 2007/early 2008 when
the UDP took over, the outstanding external debt was US$972.5 or
BZ$1.945 billion and the domestic debt was $321 million for a total of
BZ$2.266 billion.
Now in 2013 even after the so-called superbond has been
restructured, the outstanding external debt according to page 29 of the
Prime Minister’s budget presentation is US$1.018 or BZ$2.036 billion and
the domestic debt is BZ$417 million for a total of BZ$2.453 billion.
So despite all the hoopla. Despite all the umpa – after 5 years of UDP
mismanagement, corruption and incompetence, we have sunk deeper into
debt of $2.4 billion. Some $200 million deeper in debt.
If only they had continued on the path of reform growth and
development, Belize would not be in the terrible mess that we are today.
When the people gave them the mandate to govern in 2008, these UDP
leaders had one thing in mind: They run things. They forgot all their lofty
promises to the people. They set out to crush the PUP and to erase all the
accomplishments of the PUP years in government.

10. 10
MAJOR ADVANCES IN DEVELOPMENT
And no matter how often they try to vilify and demonize us, the major
advances we made in transforming and modernizing the economy of Belize
stand indelibly part of the historic record.
The Prime Minister can fulminate as much as he wants that we the PUP
have nothing to show.
Tell that to the over 50,000 Belizean mothers and their families who
benefitted from free affordable quality health care under the National
Health Insurance (NHI) programme instituted by the PUP on the South
side of Belize City and extended to the southern districts Stann Creek
and Toledo.
Tell them why as soon as the UDP came into office you started
dismantling this great health programme for the poor families who can
least afford to pay the ever increasing cost of medical care.
Tell them why you have suspended the programme when by now it
should have been extend to the entire country.
Nothing to Show he says:
Tell that to the thousands of Belizeans who live in villages and rural
communities who benefitted from the massive expansion of clean
drinking water systems piped into their communities. Tell that to the
thousands of households and small farmers who were grateful to
receive electricity for the first time in their remote communities.
Nothing to Show he says!

11. 11
Tell that to the hundreds of low and middle income Belizean families
who for the first time were able to move into their nice two and three
bedroom ferro-concrete homes right across the country – thanks to
the PUP government. The construction boom that took place was
unprecedented.
New subdivisions at Belama, West Landivar, Vista del Mar, Mile 8 on
the Western highway, Fresh Pond at Burrell Boom, Los Lagos and Maxboro
on the Northern Highway, Picini, Cohune Walk and many new housing
development sin Belmopan, hundreds of working poor families moving into
their new homes at Ladyville, Lords Bank, Hattieville and Mahogany Heights,
San Pablo in Ambergris Caye where over 200 houses were constructed
following the devastation in San Pedro by Hurricane Keith; San Lorenzo in
Orange Walk Town, Bouganvilla Park in San Ignacio; the housing boom was
spread in all districts, now in the Valley communities along the Hummingbird
highway, in Punta Gorda, in Independence Village, in Placencia and Seine
Bight.
And for those Southside Belize City representatives whose vision is
confined to Belize City; are they so politically blind as not to see the many
new homes that were built by the PUP at Yarborough in the Albert Division,
in Lake Independence and Collet extension areas, in the Fabers Road area of
Port Loyola.
Yet they try to fool the people by repeating the lie over and over –
nothing to show for it!
The investment in these housing developments with land reclamation,
streets and playgrounds, with electricity and water systems was over $110
million dollars.

12. 12
In addition over $400 million in loan financing was provided to
farmers, fishermen, entrepreneurs, homeowners, hoteliers, in the tourism
sector, for students in Junior College and pursuing university education.
Nothing to show for it? Tell that to the Belizean doctors, engineers,
entrepreneurs, scientists and artists, the cadre of professionals who are
pursuing their careers and contributing to the development of Belize.
Thanks to the help they received to pursue university training under a PUP
Government.
The numbers speak for themselves. With the construction boom and
the investments we made to develop the agriculture sector in diversified
activities such as papaya production, shrimp farms, tilapia industry at La
Democracia, cacao production in Toledo, in the infrastructure investment in
the Tourism sector especially in San Pedro, Caye Caulker, Placencia and the
Cayo District, thousands of new jobs were generated in small and medium
sized enterprises. The unemployment rate was brought down to 8%. After
5 years of the UDP, the jobless situation is a time bomb waiting to explode –
over 23%.
The Barrow Administration with its misguided philosophy of big
government wanting to own or control every facet of economic activity IN
Belize has depressed and squeezed out the private sector. The inevitable
result is mass firing of workers, foreclosures and down-sizing. So the public
sector continues to grow with the hiring of crony contract officers and the
paying of salaries to gang members paying them not to work but as ransom
money “to hold it down.”
The teachers can’t get a salary adjustment, says the Minister of
Education. But his government can pay $3 million in the name of so-called
gang truce.

13. 13
Nothing to Show shouted the member for Collet!
He cannot even give grudging recognition to the major transformation
that took place in education under the PUP. 1,500 new classrooms built,
new high schools built, many more expanded. New Sixth Forms at Wesley
College and Escuela Mexico. The University of Belize with a modern campus
in Belmopan inaugurated. Upgraded facilities for UB all the way down to
Punta Gorda Toledo. State of the Art Technical and Vocational Institutions
(now called ITVET) established in all six districts of Belize. Hundreds of
scholarships given for deserving students to attend Sixth Form and
University.
Instead of building on this great achievement in education, the loud-
mouth Minister of Education instead of giving credit where it is due to the
former Minister of Education the leader of the Opposition, spends his time
preening like a peacock while UB is in crisis. He cuts the subsidies and the
students are burdened with higher fees. The ITVET facilities are underutilized
and the number of school drop-outs continue to rise.
I could go on to talk about many other great accomplishments to
debunk the myth, the lie perpetuated by that those on the other side that
we have nothing to show.
I could talk about the great revival – the renaissance in culture and
the arts initiated by the PUP with the establishment of the National Institute
of Culture and History (NICH), the building of the Bliss Centre for the
Performing Arts, the Museum of Belize, the House of Culture in Belize City,
Orange Walk Town (Banquitas) in Corozal Town, in Dangriga (Gulisi) in
Benque Viejo del Carmen. The teaching of Maya and African history in our
schools, the massive upgrade to the various Maya temples, visitors’ centres
and access roads.

14. 14
I could talk about the major infrastructural development that took
place. The new Border Management Facilities at the Northern and Western
borders. The paving of the Southern highway. The new bridges on the
Hummingbird highway at Caves Branch, Sibun and Silver Creek. Bridges in
Toledo at the Moho River, the Jordan bridge; in the Cayo district the Agripino
Cawich bridge to the Valley of Peace, the Beaver Dam bridge on the Western
highway. The Orange Walk By Pass, the Burrell Boom – Hattieville By Pass.
The Caye Caulker and the Placencia airstrips upgrade. The expansion at the
Philip Goldson International Airport runway.
Much was achieved Mr. Speaker but there is no gain saying that much
more remains to be done. But for this Prime Minister and this UDP
Government to pretend that they are the saviors of Belize and the PUP has
nothing to show is to indulge in crass hypocrisy and outright deception; it is
the product of self-deluded minds.
The Belizean, people particularly those in San Pedro Ambergris,
villages on the old Northern highway right up to Corozal, down in Placencia,
Independence Village and in the Toledo district who faced the brunt of the
devastation wrecked by hurricanes Keith and Iris as well as Tropical Storm
Chantal and Hurricane Dean – they know of the great work of
reconstruction, costing over $400 million in total, carried out by the PUP
administration, the great work of restoration and reconstruction done in
record time, the institutional investment we made in the National Emergency
Management Organization that has stood our country in good stead for
many years to come.
When they in the ruling party now say we have nothing to show for
the monies borrowed, they are spitting in the sky and it is falling back in
their faces.

15. 15
They have become so arrogant and full of themselves that they believe
they can say and do anything and get away with it. They threaten and
intimidate all who oppose them or criticize them.
- The Mayan leaders are attacked for wanting to be properly consulted
about oil drilling in Toledo.
- The President of the Inter-American Development Bank Mr. Moreno is
called a coward by the Prime Minister for refusing to provide a partial
guarantee.
- The rating agencies like Standards & Poors can “go to hell”.
- Transparency International can no longer get information about the
level of corruption that is taking place in this government.
- A Minister can burn over half a million dollars worth of valuable
rosewood and the rest of the Cabinet laughs it off as an unfortunate
mistake.
- A Minister of State in charge of gangs involved in a gang-like
debauchery at a casino in the Free Zone, is charged with aggravated
assault of a police officer is granted police bail and given a slap on the
wrist by the Prime Minister.
- Another Minister of State is accused by an irate Belizean living abroad
of being conned out of thousands of dollars and he too gets a slap on
the wrist. They both continue to sit in this Honourable House with
impunity, protected from on high.

16. 16
- The Deputy Prime Minister who by his own admission, abuses his office
to convey hundreds of acres of valuable national real estate to various
of his family members at gross undervalue. But he is rewarded by
being voted back by his colleagues after getting a ringing endorsement
from his party leader – the Prime Minister.
- The Attorney General instead of coming up with any meaningful
program or policy to improve the administration of Justice in Belize
which is in crisis, chooses instead to engage in a petty vendetta
against the Bar Association of Belize.
In all this Mr. Speaker, the rule of law, the Constitution of Belize and
the very foundation of a parliamentary democratic system is being
undermined.
Is it all surprising that the entire justice system is in crisis? The Courts
are overburdened with a back log of cases. Yet the budget for the Supreme
Court was cut last year by almost 2 million dollars. The budget of the
Magistrates Courts was cut by over a million dollars.
The Prosecution Branch is under-resourced in both human and
financial capacity. The independence of the Judiciary is undermined by the
hiring of judges and magistrates on contract instead of until retirement as
the Constitution of Belize expressly requires.
The Contractor General’s reports tabled in this House simply list the
number of contracts dealt with by each Ministry. No report discloses any
investigation or due diligence inquiry into whether the procurement process
required by the Finance and Audit Act was complied with. These reports are
not worth the paper they were written on.

17. 17
The entire Judiciary shares a little over 1% of the National Budget.
Trained Belizean lawyers are passed over for recruitment as magistrates;
the Attorney General and his Solicitor General prefer to hire from outside.
And it is not only Justice that is in crisis. The entire social, economic
and political system is fast becoming a farce. There is growing inequality.
The families of the all powerful Ministers are getting richer. The poor and
hard working Belizeans are getting poorer. That is the reality of Belize today
and this Budget will do nothing to change that harsh reality.