And while the Prime Minister's budget promises to be austere, it will not be without plums, and one of them is the Cabinet decision to roll out NHI to Southern Belize.
Cabinet has announced that what is still an NHI pilot project will continue on the south side of the Belize District and now roll into southern Stann Creek and Toledo districts. At current rollout for half a district, NHI costs Social Security $4 million a year, and this additional rollout over one and a half more districts could cost at least $5 million more. How that going to be paid for? Well today's Cabinet brief leaves out that little detail. We do know that a sin tax on beer and soft drinks was proposed as the only viable, politically tenable means, but with other new taxes in the pipeline for general revenue purposes that may prove unpopular. We wait and listen for government's final word on this one.
