BELIZE CITY, Sun. Mar. 27, 2022– The budget debate for 2022-2023 concluded on Friday evening with a final reading of the new budget in the House of Representatives and a last-minute amendment to capitalize the Contingency Fund for the first time in Belize’s history. According to Prime Minister Briceño, $5 million of Government funds will be placed in the Contingency account to pay for any unforeseen expenses in this coming fiscal year.
“It’s important at least for historical records to point out that we made an amendment on Capital II, to increase Capital II by $5 million, and the $5 million is for us to fund the Contingency Fund. The Contingency Fund is referred to in the Constitution, and it has never been put in place, so for the first time in history, a PUP government is setting up a Contingency Fund, so if there is an emergency we can take monies from there without anybody trying to make any accusations of not following the process”, PM Briceño said.
The government has made this move to capitalize the fund at a time when the representatives of stevedores employed by the Port of Belize are locked in a legal battle with their employer, which has used a judicial review application to block an ex-gratia payment that was granted to those workers by the government. The $1.5 million payment was allotted for the stevedores as compensation for hardships and financial losses they have suffered as a result of the privatization of the Port of Belize, and as part of an effort to persuade the stevedores to end a strike that was ongoing at the time.
The lawyers for PBL, however, filed a last-minute judicial review application just as the payment was about to be made, claiming that parliamentary approval was not received prior to the granting of the $1.5 million payment.
The House of Representatives recently passed a supplementary appropriation bill to approve the payment, which has since been passed by the Senate, but PBL, through its lawyers, has seemingly switched its legal argument, and is now claiming that the payment should have come from the Contingency Fund, an account which was established just 6 months ago, and which has just undergone its first capitalization.
The case goes back to the court in a two-day session on May 10 and 11 of this year.