And while the teachers were unsure about the paycut, the Prime Minister was inside the National Assembly making very sure it's in effect. He introduced an interesting piece of draft legislation that spells out how the wage cut will work in greater detail.
It is known as the Public Sector Emoluments and Allowances Reduction Bill of 2021. Although the Prime Minister's budget already accounts for the 80 million dollar reduction in public spending from the wage cut, this new bill spells out the fine print of how it will work, and what the new pay scales for teachers and public officers will look like.
Today's bill also formalizes the different cuts to salaries and allowances for ministers that the Government and the Unions have discussed at length. Here's what the Prime Minister had to say when he introduced it to his colleagues as the "Barrow Wage Cut":
Hon. John Briceno - Prime Minister
"Those who will be affected by the Barrow wage cut will include public officers who fall under the supervision of the Public Services Commission, the Security Services Commission and the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, and teachers of both the government schools and the grant aided denominational schools. For those public officers who fall under the Public Service Commission the Minister responsible for the Public Service will be advising her excellency the Governor General. Let me repeat, her excellency the Governor General to sign regulations enacted by statutory instrument pursuant to section 106, subsection 3 of the Belize constitution. That will reduce their emoluments to 10% and as to 25% of entertainment allowance. These regulations are to be called the Belize constitution Public Service Emoluments and Allowances Reduction Regulations 2021, thanks to Dean Barrow and the UDP government. The teachers who are employed by the grant aided denominational schools, the National Assembly has effected their salary reduction under the general appropriations act for the budget year 2021-2022. For those security officers who fall under the Security Services Commission and those law officers who fall under the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, we will be introducing the public sector emoluments and allowances deduction 2021 which seeks to reduce their emoluments by 10% and entertainment allowance where applicable to 25%. The staff of the national assembly will also be reduced similarly. Through this bill, the salary of Ministers of government will be reduced by 15% and their allowances will be reduced by 50%. Please let me point out Madam speaker and to the other members of the National Assembly and to everyone that only employees earning more than $12,000 per annum will be affected by these cuts. Let me also remind the honourable house that these wage cuts only represent 20 cents of every dollar that we have cut from the budget and that at the end of this financial year we are still going to have a recurrent deficit of almost $100 million. In effect, we still have to be borrowing money to be able to pay salaries thanks to the previous UDP government."
This bill has passed in the House of Representatives, and it now goes to the Senate for that upper House Chamber's approval.
