Last night we told you about the Government virtual meeting with the IMF for their Article 4 consultation.
As you saw earlier this segment, the Briceno administration is riding high on strong GDP growth.
And while the picture may appear rose to the multilaterals - in Belize, teachers and public officers are still feeling the pain of a 10% paycut.
We asked Prime Minister Briceno about that today:
Reporter
"You have glowing reviews yesterday from the IMF, but we wonder have you broach the subject with them about the 10% salaries that the joint unions want back. Would that have change their position?"
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize
"You could have stayed with the glowing reviews, First, let's talk about the reviews from the IMF. Nobody expected our government to accomplish what it did in one year and as I told them, it is not only our work. Yes, we had the ideas and we worked very hard to get it done, but also it included our public officers. I mean, they went through tremendous sacrifice to be able to get us to where we are. Now when it comes to the ten percent, today as we speak, the DPM and Minister of Education, I think Minister Usher is also meeting with the unions to discuss the ten percent. We know that people are suffering, we know that people are punishing, we know that the cost of living continues to go up and it would be unconscionable if we would say, oh no, no, we're not going to because of the IMF. And I told the IMF that we also have a responsibility to our people, our citizens and we're going through a difficult time, it's not only about the numbers, financial numbers, but it is also about people. How will we give them the ten percent? We don't know, that's what we're discussing with them and we feel that we would be able to come up with a compromise that everybody can live with. But that's what they are working on at this moment. I also pointed to the IMF, because as I said the team leader have said, you know he has never seen any country accomplished what we have and I wrote down what he said word by word and I kind of repeated and he said yes you can repeat it, of how we have managed to turn things around in such a short 12 months. But I'd also pointed out to him - we also have a social responsibility to our people, NHI, free education, infrastructure development, fight of crime, grow the economy so we could create jobs for our people. According to the SIB now unemployment is a now at under 10%. I still think there are still a lot of people out there who are trying to get a job. The point is we are moving the country in the right direction."
