And, switching from crime news, today the members of the joint union team met with the government's negotiating team. The two parties were formed back in 2021 when the government stated it would have to cut public servant's salaries by 10%. Since then, the presidents of the PSU, the BNTU, and the APSSM have met several times with the GOB.
And the topics of discussion generally remain the same, however, with every meeting, the end goal gets closer. For the union, one of the things they want to do is assist the government with reducing expenditure, something they advocated for in place of the 2021 salary cut. The two parties also discussed pension reform and combating price gouging.
After the 3 and a half hour meeting, the PSU president told us more.
Dean Flowers, President, PSU
"The topics remain the same. High on the list of courses, the issue of pension reform. There was some discussion on that, that I cannot necessarily elaborate on at this point in time. But pretty much it was simply for government to reiterate their position and for us to charter a way forward to effect that."
"And so really and truly the only thing that would have changes is at what point in time would that be effected? We also touched on the reinstatement of course of the cost savings and revenue enhancement committees."
"New members were appointed to those committees. As soon as we get back and we're able to circulate the final draft of that, I have no problem sharing those with you because I think it's very important as well for the media and for the general public to review those terms of reference and to see that in fact we are putting in place mechanisms to be able to assist with the recovery of the economy as well as curtail the expenditure of government."
"So we touched on those and we agreed on some members for those as well. We touched a little bit of course on the ongoing struggle that the Belizeans are going through where cost of living is concerned and how we address that."
"As an update to our proposal to government to assist them and to assist the price control in unit, finally we finally got word from the Ministry of Agriculture who have informed us and I believe this was late yesterday. They invited us to make submissions for them for public offices to be trained. From our end we'll be recommending 55 public offices who will be spread across the country to assist the price control unit."
"From what I understand from the ministers today, the Honorable Mai did inform them that between, I believe it is August and now, a substantial amount of tickets have been issued. Those were issued by price control public officers from within the Ministry of Agriculture who work under that unit."
"And interestingly enough, I understand the bulk of those tickets issued were issued here in Belize City, primarily, I believe the minister informed us in the Lake Independence and some other area on the south side."
"But I'm glad that at least the pilot project, because I understand that was primarily a pilot. And so now, with our assistance, hopefully much more tickets."
Flowers says he's hoping the next meeting will be set for December or January, especially considering that the last meeting was about 7 months ago.
