The Prime Minister will present his 2023/2024 budget in 9 days - and what the teachers and public officers want to know is whether he'll unfreeze their increments.
Today the press caught up with him at another event and he gave us a broad outline of what's in store - including no new taxes. But, on the increments, he still seemed to suggested that it's tied to the discussion over pension reform - which hasn't even started yet:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"No there is going to be no new taxes, the budget is going to go up a little bit more because of all the commitments that we have especially under Plan Belize, um, it's been capital projects especially Cap 2, and some Cap 3. But it is important for us to be able to maintain a primary balance, a positive primary balance, and basically means that we are collecting enough to pay for our expenses and that for us is important and we are trying to maintain it right now for this year at least at.5 of a percent for the new fiscal year."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir information is that you are, or your government is going to be restoring increments, is that correct?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Yes, we have said it many times from last year in December I told the unions that we are prepared to unfreeze the increment freeze that we have so that then, um, our government employees can expect increments. There are a lot of good workers that deserve an increment but also there are a number of them that don't deserve an increment, and that is the position I have been telling to the unions that an increment is not an increase in salary, an increment should be given based on performance and that is where I guess the unions don't like when I mention that."
Reporter:
"How do you respond then to what the NTUCB is saying that you're six week time frame for pension reform and it's implementation is not sufficient, there has to be consultation and research, etc?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Well, they are the ones that set the timeline and they are saying that they want everything done by the first of April and so we are just responding and we say if you want to be the first of April, let's sit down and get it done and it will be done. We are going to have a meeting, I think it's tomorrow and our representatives in that committee, the DPM and minister Fonseca, Henry Charles and Chris, we have already told them what is it that we can expect, or what is it that we believe that we can do and we've said definitely the increments. But we need to put now a system in place for increments to be given based on merit and the pension reform, I think the first step is that there is a....and the unions have already accepted that there needs to be pension reform and they are saying that they want to start at ground zero. And if we were going to do that it's going to take us about 30 years before we start to really feel the benefits of it. 30 years from now the amount that we are going to be paying is going to be incredibly high so we simply cannot afford it and so we will sit down with them and try to find a way how we can implement it, probably it will take more than six weeks, of course, it probably will but the important point is that once both groups have said yes we need to do it and these are the parameters and then work towards it."
As you heard both sides will meet tomorrow - and we'll tell you what comes out of that.
