And while un-parliamentary language was prohibited, name calling was not, and both sides did plenty of that. It started with the Leader of the Opposition’s response to the budget.
Hon. Johnny Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
“So the real backdrop to this year’s budget Mr. Speaker is high taxes, higher cost of living, higher interest rates, and no economic growth. It will mean more Belizeans losing their jobs and more pain and suffering for the Belizean people. Those are the facts and this Prime Minister cannot disguise it with his fancy words. The UDP came into office in 2008 fully aware of what was going on in the world economy and although they knew what was going on, they offered 21 unrealistic promises which we now know are a pie in the sky. By now all of us know why things are this dread in Belize. This administration rolled into Belmopan without a plan and more so without a clue on how to run a country.
Also I want to remind the Prime Minister that some of the very projects he is putting forward in this 2010-2011 budget, were the same ones he presented in his first budget way back in July of 2008. Projects like the Kendall Bridge, the conclusion of the Placencia Road and the Solid Waste Project. These were all a part of ‘Realizing the Possibilities.’ And then in 2009, they were supposed to help us overcome the challenges pursuing the possibilities and once again they are back in Recovery Today, Prosperity Tomorrow; three UDP budgets in a row and the same list of incomplete projects. This is why we say this government doesn’t have the competence to get the job done. Once again we reminded of Hubert Elrington’s other famous quote that this crowd will land us right on the reef.
Each time the Prime Minister gets an opportunity he likes to blame everything on the past administration. Once of the issues he loves to hurl at his predecessors is the issue of the Superbond. Let me say this, the Superbond was not the problem, it was the solution to a problem. What it did was to allow government including this UDP government to better manage our debt. It allows us to spread out payments over a longer period of time so that we can meet our payments and we don’t have to default.
We reject any call for the introduction of any new tax which will result in added and undue hardship on the Belizean people. Now Mr. Speaker we are all happy to hear that import duty will be removed from cereal but we would have preferred that the tax relief on items such as luncheon meat and potted meat be given to products with better nutritional content.
And if you don’t believe me, I have it right here so that whenever they are ready, I could give it to them so that they could check that what we are saying is the truth. I have it right here. When you consider these products in the context of a healthy living, whatever Belizeans gain today in the removal of GST and duty from these products could very well be lost tomorrow when we continue to have more of our young people and children diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension, the very ingredients I mentioned earlier add to these kinds of complications and while we are getting relief to buy these products that are making us sick, the cost of the very medicines we use to help Belizeans suffering from diabetes and hypertension will see no relief from GST. In fact those products will see a rise in GST by 25%.
The hypocrisy of all this is that this is the same Prime Minister who got up in this House just three years ago and decried the collection of $21 million in additional taxes, calling it a monster and going further to say that we are squeezing this from Belizeans with already empty pockets. Well, after squeezing $30 million in fuel taxes alone in 2009, he intends to squeeze an additional $110 million from these already empty pockets.”
Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of the Public Service
“I am so glad he brought up the Superbond which will see us paying hundreds of millions in interest alone up to the year 2019 after which we will get to start paying back the principal. So we don’t even get to start paying back the principal until 2019. And I need to speak about this Superbond
because it hangs like an albatross around our neck. The PUP who are clamouring for this government to do all sorts of miracles, come up with all kinds of quick fixes seems to have forgotten that it is they who put this albatross around our necks.
It is they who condemned the Belizean people to pay millions which could have been used for the same social programs that they are talking about, for the same infrastructure that he is talking about. Millions that could have been used to build schools, millions that could have been used to give teachers their raises, millions that could have been used to give public officers their raise, millions that could have been used to avoid us having to raise GST. The Superbond which they don’t like to hear about and I think the member from Albert has taken credit for being the architect of that, the Superbond, the interest alone is $47 million per annum. We have been paying $47 million every year since February of 2007 and this interest on this Superbond will go up. We want to bear the facts about this Superbond bare for the Belizean people to understand why it is that we have to be raising tax, why it is that we are still not out of the hole that the PUP dug for the Belizean people.
We are actually proposing to raise from GST $42 million. The interest rate on the Superbond is $67 million. They want talk about how to avoid increasing GST, we should have avoided the Superbond, that is what we should have avoided. And one last fact, before this whole Superbond nightmare is over in 2029, we would have paid $1.6 billion in interest payment alone. People of Belize we need to understand what was done to us in the ten years.”
Hon. Mark Espat, Albert Area Rep.
“The member for Belmopan insists from time to time, it seems he cannot help himself in trying to call me out. Well let me tell him once and for all,
you have neither the physical nor the mental agility.
When you look at the numbers, this government is proposing to collect from this time year to next year, an additional $110 million. I am not making that up, the $110 million is a real figure. Of that $110 million more, $61.5 million will come from brand new taxes, fresh taxes. The centrepiece of which is a 25% increase as the leader of the opposition said, a 25% increase in the general sales tax which affect every man, woman, and child in this country.
I don’t know of any government since independence that has collected $110 million more from one year to the next. There has never been a government that has collected $110 million from one year to the next. I have to question whether there is any mathematical sanity to this budget. How can it be that in an economy that the Prime Minister projects will only grow by 1.5%, how can it be that in such an economy. 1.5% is not much growth Mr. Speaker, how can you collect $110 million more in an economy that will only expand by 1.5%? It seems impossible to me.
You know and the member for Belmopan, and I wasn’t planning to deal with it, but he brought it up and so I have no choice. I have no choice but to deal with it. The member for Belmopan says the largest tax increase ever was in 2005. Well that is simply not so and I have it in black and white and it is not a document I prepared, this is from Channel 7 news dated 17th of January 2005, an impeccable source, Channel 7 News. Mr. Speaker the fact is that in that year the government was proposing $90 million in taxes, not $110 million more and of that not $62 million but $55 million was in new taxes. So the member for Belmopan misspoke. The fact is that today this projected increase from this year to next year of $110 million is more than the projected increase that was proposed when there were thousands of people demonstrating outside in January of 2005. Those are the hard facts, it is right here. Let them dispute it that it is not so.
Mr. Speaker, let me wrap up this introductory part of my remarks by saying I am not opposed to taxes but I am opposed to dumb taxes, I am opposed to unfair taxes, I am opposed to these kind of taxes that will punish the vast majority of the Belizean people.”
The debate will resume tomorrow with the Prime Minister winding it up.
