In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus told a story about a persistent widow and an unjust judge, in which the unjust judge, who didn’t “fear God or care what people think”, gives justice to the persistent widow who had been wronged by an adversary because she kept bothering him. The focus here is solely on the persistence of our CEO class to get theirs; eyebrows across the land went up last week when local media reported a “leaked memo” that showed the group, the highest paid employees of the government, getting a hefty raise on their salaries. It might not be set in stone, the “leak” might have been to test the waters, but there being no denials from our political leaders, it looks like gazette.
The raise in the salaries, reportedly 15% for Cabinet Secretary Stuart Leslie and 13% for the CEOs, won’t put a noticeable dent in our treasury. At last check, the Cab Sec and the CEOs together make up a group of about 20, so the total cost to the nation isn’t more than a quarter million dollars. In his 2024-25 budget speech, PM Briceño noted that 37 cents of every dollar of government’s recurrent spending ($1.1 billion), to cover “wages, pensions, goods and services, subsidies and transfers and debt service interest costs,” is spent on public officers’ wages and pensions. A quarter of a million dollars is just 0.06% of the $407 million (thereabouts) that the government spends on emoluments.
The CEO group came for more in 2022. In October that year the Amandala reported that the living and entertainment allowance given to CEOs had been restored to $1,500 monthly, from the $750 monthly it had been reduced to “in May of 2020 as part of the Barrow administration’s austerity measures” during the pandemic. Cab Sec Leslie told the press “that when the unions agreed to accept a 10% cut in their salaries, the ministers, ministers of state, and their CEOs also agreed to a fifty percent reduction of their entertainment allowances.” The Cab Sec said, “CEOs are contractually entitled to that $1,500 monthly, but upon entering office following the 2020 elections they agreed to continue accepting the reduction in allowances due to the financial situation of the country.” He said, “Since public officers had their full salaries reinstated this year … CEOs are entitled to the same”, and pointed out that CEOs, who are responsible for the running of our 1.1 billion-dollar economy, didn’t get increments, had not received any salary increase since 2018, and their base salary of $76,000 annually is a quarter of what some CEOs of quasi-government bodies are making.
The arguments of the Cab Sec did not go over well. Many thought the $750 was quite sufficient. PSU president Dean Flowers said the Belizean public had every right to be “upset”. The Amandala said the main opposition (UDP), via a press release, “criticized the Government’s decision to increase allowances at this time, calling it an act of disrespect towards public officers and the Belizean people.”
Our leaders bought full-scale into the Reagan/Thatcher privatization philosophy in 1998, and they weren’t content with selling off our utilities; they set about privatizing the public service too, at the top. Educated, talented Belizeans who had trained their entire working lives in the public service system, and climbed the ladder rung by rung, were displaced by the CEOs, a new group that had little or no knowledge about the workings of government.
No study has been done to determine if we got the superior management that was promised when we paid the additional three or so million dollars to CEOs to cover their salaries, perks, vehicles, and fuel. There is a charge that with CEOs at the top, public hiring was politicized, and the morale of senior public servants was trampled on.
While the national treasury won’t “notice” if the salary increase goes ahead, it’s a hard sell to the populace. We are living in tough economic times, and since the US has decided that it deserves a greater share of the world’s pie, and is making unprecedented moves to achieve its ends, most financial experts see us moving from the frying pan to the fire. Fattening the top, when the people at the bottom are barely covering their bills, doesn’t seem right.
The main opposition (UDP) and the leadership of the unions of public servants, teachers, and hospital employees, have all spoken out against the raise. A BNTU press release said they were concerned about the “obscene” raise, and reminded the government about their “frozen increments that are now long overdue for repayment.”
According to a Love FM news transcript, PSU president Flowers said it was a “shameless act once again by the Cabinet Secretary on behalf of the CEO caucus and himself”, and a betrayal by this administration which, while they are engaged with the union in a comprehensive salary review and salary restructuring exercise, allows this little group to essentially say, “We don’t care what you’re doing on the larger scale; we’re looking after ourselves.” Opposition leader, Hon. Tracy Panton said she wasn’t “surprised that the CEOs and the Cab Sec feel it necessary to increase their salaries” because “we are living in very difficult times.” However, she said she considered the salary increases “disconcerting” and “unconscionable” at a time when open-vote workers were being let go, and “getting a food pantry is a challenge for a vulnerable family.”
Seeing the fat raise of pay for this group, our farmers, who put the country on their backs during the pandemic, must be telling themselves they are in the wrong business. Citrus greening has devastated the livelihoods of citrus growers, and we are staring at the worst year in decades for sugarcane farmers. Many small farmers have abandoned or sold their holdings. But those at the top in the white-collar world are up for a substantial raise.
The government can’t be blind to the bad optics, but with 66.5% of the popular vote in the last election and a 26-5 majority in the House, and almost 5 years left on their mandate, they might feel they can ride it out. The March 12 general election results did say the people were pleased with the government’s efforts, and the Cab Sec and CEOs were part and parcel of the minimum wage increase, getting back the Boledo, the introduction of no GST-weekends, and other achievements.
In the capitalist system, people are to be rewarded financially when they deserve it, if there’s cash in the treasury. We’re all pulling out here, but there isn’t enough for everyone—only for the cats at the top. The people could give them a pass if they accept their responsibility in the economic system they preside over. It matters what they do with the extra taxpayer dollars in their pockets.
Too often, Belizeans in the higher income bracket, those from households whose total income exceeds $40,000 per year, are the ones at the market haggling with vendors over the price of tomatoes. But they write checks to pay for luxury merchandize with “name brand” from abroad. If it’s about SUVs, holidays in wealthy countries, burgeoning bank accounts, or banking abroad, take back that raise! If they are about sponsoring programs in the schools that nurtured them, sponsoring the arts and sports, investing in businesses that can create jobs and win us valuable foreign exchange, there’s hope for us.
We should want this set to be happy. As the Cab Sec said, they manage our billion-dollar economy. Many of us feel they should be happy enough with what they had already. My, they are persistent.