Eleven Demands, But Still No Government Response

Cabinet has been given extra time, but the pressure is not going away. The deadline set by the National Trade Union Congress of Belize has expired, leaving the Briceño administration to answer eleven wide-ranging demands on governance, education and other national issues. Union leaders say they are willing to wait a little longer, but they want a formal response that can move both sides toward meaningful dialogue. Education Minister Francis Fonseca says his ministry is working on a detailed reply to the Belize National Teachers’ Union.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“I expressed surprise that they had introduced that into a NTUCB discussion because we were having direct discussions with the with the BNTU, the Ministry of Education, and the BNTU were having direct discussions about those issues in our own meeting. So I did not find it necessary for it to form a part of some wider national discussion. But I said that I understood that, and nevertheless, we would engage with them and continue that work. So yeah we’re preparing a full response, a comprehensive response to those issues. And yeah, we will have a discussion with them very shortly. So yeah I don’t see any issue in terms of any deadlines. We will have a full response, long before that.”

 

Reporter

“More money that will have to come from government coffers for teachers to get classroom preparation money.”

 

Francis Fonseca

“Yeah. We have a budget. We can’t go back to the Ministry of Finance for any money. So it means that if we decide, and we haven’t made a decision yet, if we decide to provide that sort of allowance, what they call a resource allowance, resource classroom, resource allocation, if we do decide on that it will mean that it has to come from somewhere. So we’ll have to take it from some other part of the budget.”

 

Fonseca says the ministry will consider the BNTU’s proposals, but its limited budget leaves little room for new benefits.

 

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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