And inside the National Assembly, the Prime Minister presented three loans motions. The first was for the Trade and Investment Facilitation Program for Belize, at 8 billion US dollars, and the second was 10 billion US dollars for the Program for Digital Innovation to Boost Economic Development in Belize. PM Briceno spoke more about what these will entail.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Belize, over the years, particularly over the last 13 years, received progressively lower marks for the difficulties with doing business in Belize. Too many processes, too many bottlenecks, too many bureaucracies have contributed to such challenges of doing business in Belize, all of which make it more costly to conduct business. This loan motion seeks to support our efforts to make it far easier to invest and do business in Belize by implementing a digital single investment window and a foreign trade single window for example, bureaucracies will be eliminated and processes streamlined so that businesses and investors will be able to transact more seamlessly and efficiently on a much more cost effective basis."
"In plan Belize, we made a commitment to digitize most of the government services and to do so as quickly as we possibly can. Over the past couple years we have been working hard in doing just that, digitizing."
"Madam speaker, this 10 million dollar US loan will not only support further implementation of our digitization agenda but it goes even further. It's general objective is to promote digitization not only for government services but for firms as well as to promote growth and increase efficiency in Belize's economy."
But while the leader of the opposition doesn't have objections to the motions themselves, he says that there needs to be a closer eye kept on the government's constant borrowing.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"I do support the loan motions, I do agree with the purpose of the loan motions, but it has to be put on record, the miserable history of borrowing this country into debt as far as the superbond and all of the financial burdens that have been placed on the taxpayers by the PUP administration. it has to be put into context the abject hypocrisy of the prime minister who, when the former prime minister, Dean Barrow, under the UDP administration was borrowing for the sake of the COVID 19 pandemic that wrecked havoc on Belize and the rest of the world, they criticized the government for borrowing and now we have a government that is obsessed, addicted to borrowing, a government that says the economy has recovered and we have rebounded but we are still borrowing. If the economy has rebounded, why can't the government spend its own money why does it have to borrow every House Meeting? This is 66 million dollars in loans, in one day."
However, the PM rebutted this in the House, saying that at least their government doesn't borrow just because they can, like a certain three term former administration.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Madam speaker, the problem is not the issue of borrowing, borrowing for just borrowing sake, that is the problem. I need to remind the honorable leader of the opposition, I come from the private sector, I have several businesses, and lots of time, we have to borrow because we invest and we know by grow your business and then you'll be able to pay it and create opportunities and create a profit. That's what you do, that kind of mentality has to be brought into government, into governance."
"That is the difference between the UDP and the PUP, they were just borrowing for borrow and borrow and borrow sake, and tacos and pibil. And what did the former leader, prime minister say last time? He will borrow and borrow and borrow until he can't go anymore, and he did just that, he borrowed and borrowed and borrowed until he couldn't go anymore."
"Your government, the UDP government borrow 2.2 billion dollars, you left this country with debt of over 4 billion dollars, that is your legacy."
The third loan motion was 15 million US dollars for the Program for Sustainable and Inclusive Belize.
