Restructuring or Rollback? Workers Raise Concerns Over SARA Plan

Cabinet has approved a major shift that would turn the Belize Tax Service Department into a Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authority, or SARA. The government plans to roll it out in phases, promising consultations along the way as it restructures governance, staffing, and operations under the Ministry of Finance. But that assurance isn’t calming everyone. The Public Service Union is pushing back hard, warning that workers could lose key benefits and accusing the government of brushing aside their concerns. PSU President Dean Flowers is now calling for transparency as the debate over SARA heats up. We spoke with him about why the union isn’t backing down.

 

Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union

“On Wednesday we were invited to a meeting of what will be the project steering committee to oversee the transition of the Belize Tax Services Department into a semi-autonomous revenue authority. To summarize that meeting in essence we would’ve spoken a little bit about the terms of reference, which we are yet to agree on. And that is important. We have to get the terms of reference right because when we declared a trade dispute against the Ministry of Finance and we gave our rationale to the Labor Commissioner and the Ministry of Public Service. The Ministry of Public Service  themselves, through the Minister of Public Service, would have agreed that the union was justified in its position and that the Ministry of Finance had done a horrible job in engaging and disclosing and being transparent with what they wanted to do with one of the largest revenue-generating departments of government. I can repeat once again for the record that no other than the Minister of Public Service would have said that we need disclosure to be able to meaningfully engage and comment and influence this policy decision so that it can work if it is that this is the direction that the government wishes to go. And to paraphrase his words, he would have said “We need a disclosure of the legislation.” I can confirm that the draft legislation was shared with us. Quick reaction is that it is deficient. It is wanting, especially where respect for workers and workers’ rights is concerned. It is holistically and completely deficient in that regards. But we have thirty days to provide our input on that, and we will be doing just that.”

 

Flowers also noted that no analysis or studies justifying the transition to SARA have been shared with the PSU, promising to press aggressively for transparency and to scrutinize CARTAC recommendations that support the proposal.

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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