And we also asked the PM about the three-year salary cut for the unions. That was the initial agreement, with reviews every six months to see if the economic situation had gotten better. The PM said they are set to meet with the joint unions next week, but the unions had asked for the disclosure of some documents prior to the meeting – and then complained that the government hadn't obliged them.
The PM explained that they had asked for a number of things, but that the government will only give what they consider relevant:
Hon. John Briceno - Prime Minister
"Remember when we said it was going to be for 3 years the pay cut and the increments based on the numbers that were given to us but because of we've managed to get the public service and teachers to concede the pay cuts, that has led to many good things. One, it has led us for the IMF to begrudgingly accept our home grown plan, two it has allowed us to go to the bond holders and negotiate hard and for them to get a cut of 500 million dollars that what we saved for Belize and three it has led us to the new blue bonds whereby the blue bond we are setting aside a permanent trust for marine conservation that by 2040 will be at 200 million dollars and four it has also look at the millennium challenge cooperation the MCC - because of that sacrifice we did, we managed to do all of this. We know the economy is growing way faster than what the IMF was predicting, they were saying we were going to have growth between 2 and 3 percent, then they move to 6 percent and now we're seeing we will have growth between 12 and 15 percent for last year and for this year the present projection are at 6.2 percent growth rate, this is phenomenal growth, the taxes have been performing better than what we expected and so we believe and we meet with the PSU and the BNTU that we may be able to look at the salary cut and be able to see how we can start to give back the amount that was cut. We know it's for 3 years but if we can do it, I would do it tomorrow but we still have to look at the numbers but we believe we can do something for them."
Reporter
"They said they have had the government for certain information and it has not been disclosed to them as yet."
Hon. John Briceno
"But we have given them some information, we can't give them everything they ask, it is impossible for the long list that they have, I mean we are government, we were elected to govern and I told them that and we will give them the information that is necessary for the negotiations, we have given most of that information already to them and to our social partners when we had that meeting, so I think we're suppose to be writing them setting up a meeting with them and we are going to disclose as much as we can give them."
