And if you recall, the Prime Minister had announced this latest proposal during a statement last week Wednesday - ahead of the consultation team's meeting with the unions. In the statement he said that the unions were given the drafts of three good governance legislations and were promised an audit of Petrocaribe funds along with a Rationalization of Public Service - which will include a reduction of the work week by 5 hours to compensation for the 10% cut.
There is also the issuance of a land credit equivalent to 50% of the cut - and for those who already own land, they can use the credit as a settlement of outstanding land taxes.
In addition, the officers will also receive a national health package, discounted data packages for teachers, cash flow relief on loan payments, waiver of stamp duty, and special facilities at DFC and the National Bank of Belize.
On top of that, the Ministers' salaries will also be reduced by 15% instead of 10 and their entertainment and telephone allowances will be cut in half.
There will also be the establishment of a Tax Recovery Unit that will be tasked with the aggressive recovery of all lawfully due outstanding tax arrears. There will also be a new Social Partnership committee whose task will be to provide recommendations on revenue enhancement, cost savings, tax reform, and consumer protection.
So with all that, should it be enough for the unions? In short, Minister Musa said, well, yes, it should be.
Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I would want to say that we have bent as much as we possibly can. We have been as reasonable as we possibly can in all the circumstances. I saw somebody put up a poll the other day, I don't know if it was Breaking Belize, asking which do you prefer: 10% cut, retrenchment or devaluation? These are in reality the tough choices that have to be made, because we have a public service that has gone up exponentially in numbers. 600 million dollars of our annual budget goes to just paying salaries and so we had to make tough decisions, so that is where we are right now."
"We understand what the unions, what the members are going through, the 10% cut is nothing nice, nobody wants to have to deal with that and so we are just trying as best as we can to go to that discussion table and as you pointed out earlier each time we go to the discussion table we give more and more and more, but I think that we have now reach that limit, we have maxed out in what we can offer and there seems to be no caving in on the part of the unions and like you said some members of the public are saying that they are being unreasonable. Like I said I don't want to say anything negative, only to say that we as a government, speaking from our angle and our perspective, we have been listening, we have been consulting and we have been bending as far as possible as we can."
