And finally, on the topic of the budget, the PSU Vice-President thinks that far too much focus has been placed on cost-saving, and not enough on revenue enhancement.
Here's how he justified that position:
Dean Flowers - Vice-President, PSU
"There's a whole lot that we can do, starting refocusing our energies from cost-cutting measures, and putting more of that energy in revenue enhancement. The best information to us is that there are 146 million dollars in arrears where the Belize Tax Service Department is concerned. There's also another 100 million where land tax is concerned. That's 246 million dollars, where if that was being managed properly, we wouldn't be experiencing a budget deficit on an annual basis. And so, we have to look at the taxable revenues side of things."
"We really have to look at the taxable revenue side of things and try to identify those areas where the government is losing money because of tax evasion and because of corruption within the system."
"We focused too much time on trying to address cost-savings. And we should have been focusing our energies on revenue enhancement."
"Where taxable revenues are concerned, in the middle of a pandemic, we were able to collect 70% of that. So, why is it that we weren't collect 100% of our budgeted revenues pre-COVID?"
Later on in the news, we'll have a little bit more from the PSU on the Commission of Inquiry, which will start next Monday.
