Of course, the biggest part of that budget is paying the wage bill. It's about 45 million dollars a month - right now, government is borrowing weekly to pay salaries and emoluments.
It's not sustainable - but we've been hearing that since the last Prime Minister was in office. So, when will someone bell the cat, and does PM Briceno have the will to do it? When pressed for a position today, he was non comital:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"As it is right now the wage bill and the pension bill combined is approximately about 80% of the budget and we in December announced that we will start, we have taken a 10% cut into our salaries as a gesture of goodwill to show that we are prepared to do what is necessary. We are going to sit down with the unions and with a blank sheet of paper and we are going to see what are the steps that we can take to be able to cover this huge crater in the budget."
Reporter
"Is the government now considering retrenchment in the public service and those who remain employed receive a 20% pay cut?"
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We havent considered anything. As I said we have blank paper and we are going to sit down with our partners and together we have to make the decisions and whatever decisions that we come that will be able to get us on a sustainable footing, we are going to do that. But we cannot continue to spend money that we don't have, because if we continue to do that then everything is going to crash."
Reporter
"Does government continue to borrow a million dollars everyday to meet salaries?"
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Right now it's a little less than a million dollars, but yes it's still continue to do that."
