With the IMF's drastic prescription for sweeping and immediate tax I increases and a palpable sense of foreboding in the community, the government of Prime Minister Said Musa is perhaps at its most vulnerable. And while the beleaguered PM Musa staggers and sways like an injured goalie about to take an onslaught of penalty kicks, the often anemic Opposition has found its way 'round to the goal for the rare easy shot. The first shot came in the form of an emergency town meeting last night. What is the emergency? The UDP says it's the economy and Party Leader Dean Barrow offered a solution. Keith Swift reports.
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"The shortest quickest most direct route to solving the current problems of this country is for the Prime Minister to resign."
[Crowd Cheering]
Resignation. That is the long and short of the solution UDP Leader Dean Barrow offered to a modestly sized, politically charged crowd made up of a cross section of the community including a fair number of party faithful. Barrow was flanked at the head table by his opposition colleagues in the house, former Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel, their municipal deputies, and other party faithful. And last night the buzz word was confidence. Confidence which they argue the Musa administration has none of and they are arguing they can offer.
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"It is not a moral issue. It is ladies and gentlemen a practical issue. None of the things that we have presented can be accomplished by Said Wilbert Musa."
Hon. John Saldivar, Cayo South Area Rep.
"Confidence must be restored and it must be restored because the Prime Minister Musa has consistently lied to the nation. He has consistently lied to investors and has consistently lied to the international community. The Prime Minister himself has admitted that any recovery process for Belize must be premised on the restoration of confidence in the government of Belize and we all know that confidence will never be restored as long as we are being led by a man who has totally destroyed his own credibility."
And the UDP argues Musa has taken the country down with him.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Opposition Leader
"The ruling party put us into this crisis. They went full borne into this crisis while all along the opposition has been pointing out the signs of what lay ahead and they have kept on denying that there was any crisis in the making and they have kept on doing exactly what they were doing that we were pointing out to them was wrong."
And since Barrow says we are on the wrong the path, last night his party outlined a 6-point plan to follow the right path. It sounds good enough and was well received by last night's crowd - but Barrow admits it will be easier said than done and that his party doesn't have all the answers especially the $120 million one.
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"The things that have to be done can't be done by the Prime Minister. He can't go and get monies for refinancing now because he has cried wolf one time too many. He can't access new funds with respect to donor monies and concessionary funding because again he is seen as being the architect of the current problem. He can't rally the nation behind him because he continues to lie consistently to the nation; you have caught him several times on Channel 7. So basically, what we are saying is here is a package of measures but we acknowledge that this package of measures is what the UDP would do if the UDP were to be in office and it is what the UDP can do. We acknowledge it is what the PUP cannot do because the lynch of all the measures is credibility and the lynch pin is confidence."
KS: Do you deny for one moment that if the UDP were in Belmopan and faced with this same crisis, that you be able to escape this crisis without raising taxes?
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"We honestly feel that we could. We would have to cut spending and there is no doubt about that; drastically. And we would also have to engage in substantial debt refinancing because that's where our biggest problem is, the fact that we spend so much of our recurrent revenue on debt servicing. We feel that we that we can do it and we know the PUP can't do it."
And one man who has done it is former Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel who was not on the list of speakers but did sit at the head table. He says the Musa administration doesn't have a few options - it has only one-way out and that is the IMF way.
Rt. Hon. Manuel Esquivel,Former Prime Minister
"What the IMF is saying is you got to straighten out the 2004 budget; not next year's budget this one. And if you wait until January, you only two more months left in the financial year, they won't be able to do it. But the problem is that the IMF has identified how much money needs to be made up. There is a gap, I think it is $120 million or something, and that has to be made up by more revenue and less expenditure. Now how did they arrive at these measures? They looked at everything and said okay if you impose this 12% sales tax you will get so much money. If you impose new taxes on electricity you will get so much revenue. If you decide that you are going to liquidate the DFC you are going to get so much money and so on. So they add it all up so that it comes up to the $120 million so if the government chooses to skip any of those things, it won't add up to $120 million and they will still have the problem. So yes they can choose to ignore some of it and not do it. But then I am saying we have not solved the problem because these taxation measures that the IMF is saying they must do didn't drop out of the air, they actually calculated how much they could possibly earn from these things to get to that $120 million."
KS: And if they don't Mr. Esquivel do you think we will go into either a standby arrangement or structural adjustment?
Rt. Hon. Manuel Esquivel,
"I suspect we will go into a standby arrangement."
Of course for the party, there is another solution and that is a change of government. But while the voting public may have lost confidence in the country's current financial stewards, that doesn't mean they have found confidence in the UDP's prospects. Now, Barrow and his team will have to do a lot more of this sort of thing, perhaps more convincingly and in broader fora if they are to earn that confidence.
Barrow says the party will take the town meetings countrywide. Although no timetable has been set the next venue will be Orange Walk town.