7NEWS has obtained the list of the 56 contract officers who will be terminated by government and it includes some big names. The list that you see here is of all contract officers and only those with a check mark beside their names will get, or have gotten the axe.
The biggest are Belize's Ambassador to Guatemala, Fred Martinez; legal advisor to the Ministry of Finance Gian Ghandi; Executive Director of Youth for the Future Nuri Mohammed; Executive Director of the Drug Council, Ornel Brooks; and Advisor on GOB investments Luis Lue.
Also on the list are Director of the Sugar Industry Albino Vargas; Director of the Education Department Information Management System, Mustafa Toure; Education Consultant Sister Caritas Lawrence; District Education Manager Faye Gillett; Natural Resources Community Liaison officer Carlos Santos; NEMO Administrator Peter Parchue; and Special Advisor on Finance Hugh McSweaney.
The list is of 56 contract officers in total whose combined salary is about $3 million dollars. The 56 are almost exactly 25% of government's complete roster of contract officers, which is totaled at 227 persons who, pre retrenchment, cost government $11.2 million dollars every year. That's an average salary of $50,000 ranging from as little as $13,000 to as much as $209,000 that Ambassador Salvador Figueroa makes including allowances. Add that to the salary made by his wife and secretary Anita, and his mother and Counselor Alicia Hunt, and the Figueroas appear as the first family of foreign affairs with combined salaries and allowances amounting to over $420,000. And although the ambassador's mother Alicia Hunt was included in this downsizing, we are told she may be otherwise retained.
As regards all the contracts, we understand that government is simply invoking a termination clause in these contracts which will require that they pay a two month gratuity. Many high profile contract officers, whose work seems to be primarily political, such as Emory King, Norris Hall, Vaughan Gill and Mike Rudon escaped the contract axe and this may prove to be a source of contention when government makes cuts in other areas, including open vote workers.
