And while Flowers was tight-lipped on the PSU's plan of action, he did speak about the government's proposed salary cuts. Yesterday we told you that GOB is planned to do a tiered approach in which those with lower annual incomes receive only an 8% cut.
But Flowers told us that's not all the letter from the Public Service Minister said. He added that the PUP seems to be going down the UDP road with Usher's purporting to amend the constitution to fit their agenda
Dean Flowers - First Vice President, PSU "A letter came from the Minister of Public Service which threatens to tamper with the Belizean constitution. Now, again I must say, the new administration seems to every possible script out of the Barrow black book because this is the same route that Barrow went down when in April when we negotiated for an increment freeze, he threatened that he would amend the constitution. Now if the Belizean people don't understand that the constitution is the second most sacred document apart from the Bible, if they don't understand that these people are going down a serious and dangerous road, then I guess we need to start calling for them to wake up. The minister threatens and said that he's considering cutting salaries by 8, 10, and 12 percent. If you look at the government's salaries, the middle-income earners who are the one who might be doing more of the spending, not proportionately, because the bulk is at the bottom, but they're now threatening to cut them by 12 percent. If someone is earning in excess of 50,000 dollars, they will be cut 12 percent, that would be almost 600 to 700 dollars. That could be the equivalent of a student loan for their children, that could be the equivalent of a small housing loan. For somebody like myself, that could be the equivalent of removing 200 dollars in disposable income to purchase food from Ms Corrine or Mr Thimbriel at the market, so that's 200 dollars that they will not see. The proposal does more harm to public officers than good. Whether or not he will evoke and tamer with the constitution, that's yet to be seen, the public service mandate is clear, we reject that, we will stand against that, and we will resist that at all costs."
