Government Moves Forward on SARA Despite Criticism

The government is pushing full steam ahead with plans to turn the Belize Tax Services Department into a Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authority, or SARA. But the Public Service Union is sounding the alarm, saying this move could put jobs at risk. Prime Minister John Briceño isn’t buying that argument. In fact, he says an education campaign is coming soon to clear up the confusion. So, what happens to employees who might need to shift to other government departments? We asked the PM that very question.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“What we need to do is to have not a PR campaign, but an educational campaign. That’s   when Mrs. Longsford came to cabinet, because I invited her to cabinet to make a presentation to us. We made a point that we don’t need a PR campaign. We did an educational campaign because basically all we’re doing is moving the BTS into a semi-autonomous organization. Why? Because we have looked at what has happened in the Caribbean, in Guyana, where Trinidad, Jamaica, those are the three main countries that we studied. And it pointed out that those that went into a full autonomous organization they did not  work. So they had to pull it back and then fix it. So in this case, what we do, we going to do that semi-autonomous, they still report to the Ministry of Finance. As a minister of Finance, I’m still. Fully responsible for them, but we believe that by putting it as a semi   or body we will be able to provide a better service to our clients. Who are the Belizean people. Who are the Ian taxpayers.”

 

Reporter

“The number of staff who want to transfer out into other departments or ministries in the government? Can we accommodate that”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We will have to find a way how to accommodate them. But what is important is, for instance, PTS has been moving into a higher level of technical expertise that is needed. Taxation is something that is very technical and some of the people there at BTS cannot keep up. And so some of them are opting to be able to move  back to government and that’s fine. We will try to do our very best to be able to see how we could accommodate them as best as we possibly can.”