Tonight, Belize's unions are warming up for a showdown with government over the lavish phone allowance for CEO's in government ministries as well as the Financial Secretary, the Cabinet Secretary and the Solicitor General.
As we reported, after learning fo the approval for the allowance, both the PSU and the BNTU sent out angry releases with stern ultimatums for government.
On Saturday, the BNTU amplified this in an update to its membership - which outlines a laundry list of pending issues with government and then on the subject of the phone allowances, it says, quote, "We are disgusted to learn that the "fattened-two-foot-pigs" have given themselves another bigger piece of the pie by increasing telephone allowances from $250 to $600! This is an insult to our members, who are struggling to make ends meet. We demand that the government immediately reverse this decision."
The NUTCB followed up on Saturday with its own angry release calling it, quote, "a slap in the face to Public Officers, Teachers, Doctors, Nurses, Police and other Security Forces, the marginalized struggling working class and every taxpayer. The spirit of "Todos Ganamos" truly means "Todos Pagamos" while unu full unu packet and unu belly everybody else fu pay and lose."
They too called on government to rescind it immediately.
So, what will the Briceno Administration do? Well, Cabinet meets tomorrow and the matter will be tabled then according to the Cabinet Secretary, Stuart Leslie. He told us today, "I guess we wait and see."
Leslie told us the increase is merely an attempt to harmonize the phone allowance for all CEO's based on what the Prime Minister's CEO Narda Garcia inherited from the previous Prime Minister's CEO, Audrey Wallace.
