And in other news, yesterday afternoon, the National Trade Union Congress of Belize met with the IMF to discuss the update on economic developments and gradual approach to government debt reduction, the outlook for wage bill and pensions, and options for reducing the government deficit.
And after a 90 minute meeting, the president of the NTUCB said that the IMF left a bad taste in their mouths. He felt as though their representatives weren't serious about the meeting and had been more focused on the economy rather than the everyday laborers who are suffering with the 10% pay cut.
He even added that the meeting was cut short and he felt that the IMF representatives didn't see their meeting as a priority. President Luke Martinez spoke to us via Zoom today.
Luke Martinez - President, NTUCB
"The communications with IMF and the consultations at IMF continues to be same from our path. They have consulted us last year and pretty much the same tactics around the agenda, the last year the wage bill was on the agenda and they know that the biggest accommodation was for them to cut public sector wage by 10% and freezing public sector increments and we have fought hard and long to prevent that and those who wanted to see it happen fought hard and long and ensure that it happened. One would say that if things are looking that good then why not restore the public sector salary to 100% and why not restore the increments and so clearly there is no will on their part to recommend any restoration according to them even though there is a growth, if they would recommend for the restoration of public sector 10% then they will be going back on what they have requested last year. We are hoping that this is going to be a point where the government will not agree with IMF and that they will restore the public sector wages to 100%. They were so short for time that I don't think that we were able to conclude and discuss options for tax saving which is very important, we are continuously disappointed with the IMF and their representatives and we don't think that they were prepared for a serious discussion and we hope that next year, they could engage us at least for a week or two."
