Dennison’s Cost-of-Living Campaign Strikes a Chord with Belizeans

One man’s roadside protest is quickly becoming a rallying cry against Belize’s rising cost of living. For the third straight day, Union Senator Glenfield Dennison took his campaign to the streets of Belize City, this time carrying a blunt message: “Bruk da bruk.” Dennison says that message is resonating with motorists, professionals and ordinary Belizeans who have stopped to offer support and share their own struggles. Many, he says, are finding it increasingly difficult to pay their bills, buy basic necessities and keep their households financially afloat. Now, encouraged by the growing response, Dennison says he has no intention of backing down. He is calling for meaningful measures to ease the pressure on working families, and he is widening his campaign to confront another major concern: rising electricity costs and proposed increases in power charges.

 

Glenfield Dennison, Union Senator

“This sign is a direct response to what the people answered yesterday. Yesterday in the morning, the question was can you afford your bills? And the message I received back was, “What part of broke you no understand?” And that really resonated with me, because I genuinely feel like people broke. And da working people, professional people like doctors stopped and said, senator, I no di mek it and I da doctor. So how I feel about it is that I’m happy that the message is starting to resonate and people are starting to feel their feelings, because being broke can put you in a very depressive state, and it’s a discussion we need to have.” 

 

Damian Gough, Protester

“This is the first time in my experience having done so that the cost of electricity has risen so sharply. Whether it is a combination of the new smart meters, the addition of COPA, the fact of the matter is that the cost of electricity is going up. Now they want to increase it again with an increase in the COPA. We couldn’t pay the first COPA, and now they want we pay one new one. At some point, enough has to be enough. We can’t pay anymore. It can’t continue to be that the citizens of this country will be made to pay for every failure, every short falling, every mishap, every wrong decision or policy decision that was, that, that hasn’t worked.”

 

Dennison plans to take his protest to BTL on Friday with a new message, “People Over Profit,” arguing that utility companies should prioritize the needs of Belizeans over profits.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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