“Compassion Should Be Policy, Not Patronage”: PSU Challenges PM on Ministers’ Allowances

Prime Minister John Briceño is hesitant to cut ministers’ allowances. He told News 5 that ministers use the money to help their constituents. The Public Service Union of Belize (PSU) says that argument misses a bigger problem.

In a Facebook post, the PSU argued that when public money is handed out as personal assistance, it can become political patronage, especially for families facing financial hardship. It said a family that has a funeral paid for by a minister feels it received a gift from a person, not a public service, and that kind of help creates a debt.

“Nobody has to say ‘vote for me.’ People remember who helped them, and they remember who didn’t,” the PSU said.

The union also questioned the fairness of the system. It said there are no published criteria, no records and no appeal process to decide who receives help. “The person with access gets assistance. The person without it gets nothing,” it said.

The PSU said that if families must call a minister to bury their dead or pay for treatment, the country’s health and social protection systems are failing. It called for the money to move into transparent, publicly funded emergency health and burial assistance programs that people receive as a right and not as a favor.

“Compassion should be policy, not patronage,” the PSU said.

News 5 put the question to Briceño on whether the allowances, including the constituency development fund, are used to keep voters loyal. He rejected it. “I don’t know where you get that from,” Briceño said. “The idea is that the constituency development fund is a way where the Area Representative can make immediate decisions in helping their constituency.”

He said that before the fund, small works such as fixing a drain or a school door required going through the Ministry of Rural Development, the Ministry of Local Government or the infrastructure and housing ministries. The government decided to make the money available to every area representative, PUP and UDP alike, based on the number of voters in their constituency.

“I think it has been very successful,” Briceño said. “It has nothing to do with clientelism or whatever you want to call it. It is simply that we are finding ways how we can get help and how we can serve our people most effectively and most efficiently.”