So why do the unions remain on strike? They say because government is mocking them by continuing past practices of cronyism, clientelism and corruption.
And that's why union members today pounced on a pair of contracts that came out for Executive Assistants to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary.
They are for Graziana Briceno Nah - who is a relative of the Prime Minister and his long-time personal assistant, and Angeles Itzab, who used to work in the PUP Secretariat as Secretary. She's now the Cab Sec's Executive Assistant.
Now, it's not uncommon for any Prime Minister to take his closest, and most trusted support staff to Belmopan - but what critics point to are their contracts.
They are for forty thousand dollars a year, plus gratuity, but then also includes a three-hundred-dollar incentive allowance at the end of every month. Public officers do not usually get such incentives.
Both contracts were signed in December 2020 and run for two years.
PSU President Gerald Henry says quote, "those two individuals are just 2 from the list of "talented Belizeans" that our Public Officers have informed us about …As a Public Officer for over 27 years, I still don't have the slightest idea what their functions are because they don't have job descriptions like us true Public Officers….I can't figure out how they'd be getting incentive allowances on entry into the "job" when that allowance is given even an officer who has their substantive job description/duties but is asked to temporarily hold over for another officer. But they enter receiving this allowance. Yet the wage bill is unsustainable and us REAL Public Officers are being FORCED to get a pay cut to pay the salaries and allowances for these political family members and friends." End quote.
