On Friday, March 2, Prime Minister Said Musa presented his Facing, Fixing, Moving Forward budget, but today, Opposition Leader, Hon. Dean Barrow, outlined his assessment of what he calls “flat, insipid and lifeless” – a budget without “ganas” and decorated with “pyrotechnics” and “promises” that he said would not be fulfilled.
Barrow said that Musa’s proposals were half-hearted and do not promise the electorate “the sun, the moon and the stars” as one would expect for an election year or exit budget – missing his [Musa’s] “last chance to make a pitch to the electorate before the inevitable day of reckoning.”
The Opposition Leader is convinced that his party will form the next Government, and Barrow went on to make his own promises, such as resurrecting the now downscaled Development Finance Corporation – which his party uses to charge the current political administration with gross failure due to corrupt dealings with public funds.
“This government is so hated, disgusted and reviled that nothing on God’s green earth can save them,” Barrow commented.
Coming to the substance of the budget presentation itself, Barrow addressed some of the key economic indicators that P.M. Musa had quoted in his budget speech, beginning with the Gross Domestic Product.
He said that while Musa had said in his speech that the GDP for 2006 is estimated around 4%, the statistical table appended to his speech says that real GDP last year was 2.9% between January and September and “there is no way that would have changed much” by the end of 2006.
He said that the 2.9% GDP estimate was “miniscule” and revealed a continuing trend of slowing GDP growth since 2003. He said that by the Prime Minister’s own forecast, the GDP growth will slow even more in 2007 – to an estimated 1.5%.
And then he talked about inflation, which, he said, has risen every year for the last 5 years. Barrow went on to extrapolate that “accumulated inflation for the last 5 years is an unbelievable 17%,” adding that, “No wonder poor people are crying and saying that they can’t take it any longer!”
He said that the Government’s claims that the trade deficit is falling are no consolation for the hardship people have faced.
Turning to receipts from petroleum, he said that even though there has been an $81 million windfall from petroleum exports, that is “meaningless when you try to assess it on the scale of human happiness,” because all the Government has gotten out of that is “a lousy 6 million.”
Dealing with the meat of the budget, he looked at taxes on goods and services. He said that GOB “squeezed the Belizean people $21 million more than was projected” in 2006 even after “the Prime Minister and his minions said ad nauseam that the new GST would be revenue neutral, but nobody was fooled…”
He said that this administration’s GST cripples more than the Opposition’s VAT ever did, and casts its net wider.
He said that the twin monsters of the 4.5% spike in the cost of living and the payment of this $21 million in additional taxes put the squeeze on the already empty pockets of Belizeans.
“The only thing Belizeans are now prepared to wait for is the new general elections that will sweep this crowd from power, and their patience is running thin,” Barrow remarked.
He also commented on the national debt, which he quoted at “just under 2.3 billion,” with an external debt “a shade under 2 billion.”
He said that during the UDP’s term of office that ended 1998, they increased the national debt by only $150 million, and left it at $500 million, while the subsequent PUP administrations have added over a billion dollars to the national debt—almost seven times the figure. He said that the recent rescheduling of the public debt would cause Government to pay twice what it had originally borrowed.
One entity that has received hundreds of millions of those loan proceeds was the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which Barrow said the Musa government has wrecked by mismanaging it and turning it into a grab tub, with monetary gifts that were disguised as loans to cronies, but which were never intended to be paid back.
He said that the UDP would be the ones to resuscitate the DFC, and continue on the honest, sustainable tradition of its pioneers.
Barrow continued to spend over an hour addressing several major points in the budget presentation, including Government borrowing, and what he said was a drastically curtailed Capital II budget and other austerity measures in the budget.
He said that this was the 5th time Government was promising to build a state-of-the-art sporting complex at the Marion Jones Stadium in Belize City, and “presumably [Marion Jones’] financing, which had disappeared, will be replaced by Government.”
He went on to speak of other “disappearing money” and claims that the Government was not working along with village councils and municipal governments as Musa had pledged in his speech. He accused the administration of instead embarking on a vicious and vindictive program of victimization against them.
Another point he raised was the Government’s plan to roll out the National Health Insurance Scheme. Barrow said that the Social Security Board’s funds “will be shanghaied to the tune of $15 million to make NHI happen,” even though SSB officials had rejected the Prime Minister’s proposal for the complete roll-out of NHI in this election year and had instead advised GOB to take a phased, measured approach.
He went to make allegations of land grabbing and sweetheart deals, listing among them the still unresolved issue of the privatization of the Belize Companies Registry.
Barrow said that the “budget is almost an irrelevant footnote to the huge social and economic crisis that has unfolded over the last 9 years,” and he listed off sentiments such as “disillusionment, outrage and discontentment” caused by what he dubbed a manmade crisis.
But members of the other side of the House told Barrow that he was all about “doom and gloom,” and that he had misused the GDP figures in his rebuttal to the Prime Minister’s budget.
Pickstock Division area representative and Minister of Tourism, Hon. Godfrey Smith, was the first to respond to Barrow’s statements, accusing him of “clear misrepresentations of facts.”
He said that the Musa budget demonstrates that the PUP government is “confident, skilful and capable of confronting challenges.”
He went on to say that unlike the doomsday forecasts of the Opposition leader, “There was no economic meltdown, devaluation or flight of capital.” Smith also said that the Opposition’s prediction that Government’s recent bond offering of over US$500 million “would not fly” also did not prove true. He boasted that it was successful, and 98% of commercial debt was restructured through his government’s efforts.
As the minister responsible for tourism, he went on to cite developments in tourism, including new Delta Airlines flights due to begin in June, as markers of continued development in tourism and contributors to economic growth.
He also highlighted the recent upgrades of Belize’s credit ratings by Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s, two highly reputed ratings agency, after the debt restructuring.
Other members on Musa’s side of the fence rose to give their unequivocal support of the budget, including Albert Division area representative and Minister of Economic Development and Culture, Hon. Mark Espat, who was GOB’s point man for the debt-restructuring project.
Belize Rural Central’s Ralph Fonseca also spoke, saying that the people in his division are getting ready to ensure another term for the PUP.
There were speakers from the Stann Creek and Toledo constituencies, who also gave their support to Musa’s 2007-2008 budget proposals.
But Opposition members, Erwin Contreras of Cayo West, and Manuel Heredia of Belize Rural South, were on the opposing side.
The highlight of the day came at about three o’clock, when Patrick Faber got his turn to speak. Faber presented his usual challenge to the Speaker of House, Hon. Elizabeth Zabaneh, and said that since the Prime Minister wanted to wind up the debate early to avoid facing the protest of the unions on Friday, he would speak until 6:00 p.m. to ensure that the debate had to continue into day 2, as had been scheduled.
That didn’t happen, of course, as Faber willingly complied with the Prime Minister when he asked him to wrap up after about 45 minutes.
He had a lot to say about the budget, and in his attempt to stretch out his presentation, repeated certain statements for each constituency he could remember.
He told the House that Musa’s budget does not address the needs of poor people, and it is the people, themselves, who are saying there is nothing in it for them.
Belize Rural North area representative, Hon. Maxwell Samuels, wrapped up today’s session with his endorsement of Musa’s budget.