Last night we showed you how hotels and resorts on Caye Caulker and San Pedro are faring during the depression caused by covid-19. Right now our numbers are still less than half of what they were last year around this time, and it seems that Belizean's have been instrumental in keeping the industry going.
Our Lance Howard wanted to catalogue what it's like for Belizeans traveling to the islands, and find out first-hand, just how crucial the Belizean traveller is for tourism cash flow.
He, took the trip along with Cherisse Halsall and James Ayala, and here's what they saw.
Cabinet Communique
And from the windswept islands to the seafront House of Culture - which now serves as the weekly Cabinet meeting spot Minister of the Public Service, Henry Charles Usher, informed his colleagues that he wrote to the joint unions about fixing the salaries of the public officers in the constitution and, of course, received their rejection of his proposal.
But despite this, he is going ahead with it because of the deteriorated state of public finances. However, as we mentioned, the Cabinet decided it would grant a land credit in favour of the affected officers equivalent to 50% of the salary adjustment.
Additionally, Cabinet requested that the Minister of Public Utilities review the lease agreement signed by Edmond Castro, the former minister responsible for ports, and Recological Systems Limited for 25 years. The contract was signed two days before the general elections, and after the House was dissolved.
Cabinet also authorized the delivery of 50,000 tons of sugarcane from Orange Walk and Corozal farmers to be milled by the Santander Sugar Group. The Cabinet release says farmers will now be able to generate income from sugar cane which would have otherwise been left in the fields.
In addition to this, Cabinet approved the appointment of a high-level Citrus Working Group to be appointed by the Minister of Agriculture. This group will be tasked with preparing concrete recommendations to chart the way forward for the very troubled industry, and will include representatives from the two grower associations, CPBL, DFC, and the Ministries of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs.
Luke On Honourable Henry Charles And regarding the first part of the briefing, the NTUCB president spoke on the Public Service Minister. He said that while the minister has all rights to fix the salaries of the public officers, he's hoping that there was plenty of consultation before rushing to the extreme.
PSU VP Challenges Nepotism And in the meantime, PSU first vice president, Dean Flowers, is hopeful the nepotism within the government will come to an end. He noted that there are clear acts across all the statutory boards and singled out one in particular.
Making KHMH Board More Inclusive
And while the PSU condemns nepotism, the KHMH union is fighting to get one of its own on the hospital board.
It's an issue they raised in Yesterday's meeting with PM Briceno and his Minister of Health Michel Chebat when they asked for an amendment to the hospital act which would allow a staff member to play a governing role.
And this morning Andrew Baird told us that it would only be right since the staff will always be the hospital's most vital stakeholder.
Dean Says Land Tax Register Revealing Another man being held to task is P.S.U's first vice president Dean Flowers. He's been the subject of PUP-led social media scrutiny lately and it's all over his land holdings. This afternoon he told our Courtney Menzies that he's not at all ashamed and that his holdings don't even amount to four acres.
PSU Haul and Pull Strike Notice As we told you at the top of the news - the BNTU has given notice of strike action. Well, the PSU also has a strike notice of its own and their 21 days ends on May 3rd. But president Gerald Henry says for now they're laying low, hoping for negotiations to kick up again. However, they will enact the strike notice if need be.
Fuel Up Again
It's been ten days since any change in fuel prices a much needed reprieve for vehicle owners, especially since the last change was a decrease for regular fuel.
But all good things must come to an end, and today the government today announced that the price of regular is going back up but this time, only by three cents. The new price is now $10.69 per gallon.
Diesel will also see an increase of 14 cents, from $9.82 to $9.96.
Premium and Kerosene remain unchanged.
COVID Numbers
Belize's number of vaccinated persons has been steadily rising unfortunately the same can be said of those contracting COVID-19. Tonight, those numbers are stark because they include two new COVID deaths.
Now, there's been no new reported death since just after the Easter holidays and before that, it had been almost a month since the last ICU reported COVID fatality on March 8th.
Tonight, the ministry of health is also reporting 11 new confirmed cases, a daily positivity rate of 1.52%, 5 new hospitalizations, and no new recoveries.
Belize's current active cases stand at 102.
