The leaders of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize are meeting at this hour to consider their overall position. 7NEWS has confirmed that the Leader of the Opposition has been asked to sit in on the session. Factoring heavily into those considerations is a government response to a union position paper, which was submitted to government's negotiators yesterday.
The NTUCB document demanded that government must honor the April 1st salary increase as promised. It also demands that any new tax measures not be put into effect until April first. It also made 14 recommendations for corrective measures which would see greater collection of taxes and an objective assessment of questionable practices at the DFC. It also calls for the Ombudsman and the Contractor General to be removed.
Well, Cabinet met today to consider the proposals, and within 24 hours, government got back to the unions with a response. That response deals with each proposal and it was sent to the unions at 5:15 pm. 7NEWS has obtained a copy as well as a Cabinet brief. In short, it commits to enforce the collection of all outstanding land taxes but says they cannot collect the amount requested by the unions. It also commits to review the performance of CEO's and contract officers and cut, at the most, $1 million from the money spent on contract officers. It agrees to suspend the granting of any new development concessions for a month. It commits also to look at the NTUCB's tax proposals at mid year government's response also discloses that a special audit is being conducted at the DFC, and another is planned for the Small Farmers and Business Bank.
Cabinet does not agree to the removal of the Ombudsman and the Contractor General. And the Cabinet brief also discloses that in regard to the Chamber's demand for investigations to be made of past corruption, Cabinet says all necessary investigations will be carried out. It's an unprecedented set of commitments, on paper at least, but if we gauge the temperature properly, right about now, the NTUCB doesn't seem very tolerant of the promise that "we will"; the leaders and their members seem to want government to act decisively and immediately. What will the NTUCB decide at this critical juncture? Well, at newstime the meeting was still on and we'll have their decision in tomorrow's newscast.
