_{Hubert Enriquez, President of the ABRPO}

by Charles Gladden

BELMOPAN, Wed. May 14, 2025

 The Association of Beneficiaries and Retired Public Officers (ABRPO) held a nationwide protest on Wednesday, May 14, to demand a payout of funds belonging to its members that were placed in a trust decades ago.

“We’re protesting this whole matter of this Trust. We have been promised for years, it’s going to be terminated; and for some reason or the other, government is still [working on] the whole process; and so we feel that by coming out here it’s going to show them that we are serious about having this trust dissolved, so that people can be compensated for what has been voted for over thirty years,” said Hubert Enriquez, president of the ABRPO.

Those funds that Enriquez is referring to are increments that were withheld as an austerity measure under the Esquivel administration in the mid-1990s (1995-1997), but which, according to the terms of an agreement, were to be given to those workers upon retirement. Those funds, however, remain in a trust known as the Public Service Workers’ Trust (PSWT) almost three decades later, and many of the public workers who were to have received those funds have passed away.

This government has appointed the Financial Secretary, Joseph Waight, under the Briceño Administration, to oversee a project aimed at distributing the funds to the remaining beneficiaries of the trust, but the ABRPO says that the administration is dragging its feet because of a lack of interest.

“I strongly believe that they want to do it, but they are hindered by the unions; in my mind. They don’t want to upset the unions. We know that there have been discussions on other matters, like the pension reform, where public offices are not going to be asked to contribute to other pensions. What we know is that they have been threatened by the union that, if the government carries out the trust termination, that they are going to withdraw from those discussions,” Enriquez mentioned.

He further explained, “So, that’s one of the reasons why; but I think that there’s a general lack of interest, even though the parameter says certain things … that they have done certain things like, for instance, they have named the Protector for the Trust, which is a good thing, in my opinion, but nothing has happened since then. So, we are concerned, and feel [like] they are not interested in this matter. Of course, it’s a good cause that we’re fighting for, and beneficiaries are passing away daily.”

The protest in Belmopan was held in front of the Sir Edney Cain Building, and on Albert Street at the Battlefield Park in Belize City. There were also protests in Corozal Town, San Ignacio Town, Dangriga Town, and Punta Gorda Town.