Government Ministers Now Feel The Budget-Cutting Pain

Millions are being slashed from government spending, and this time, even ministers are being forced to take a hit. The Briceño administration is cutting a quarter of its public service budget to bankroll cost-of-living initiatives, with thirty-five million dollars coming out of goods and services and another fifteen million from Capital Two projects. Ministers will also see their allowances cut in half. But with fifty million dollars being redirected and government tightening its belt, the bigger question is whether these cuts will deliver meaningful relief to Belizeans or create new challenges across the public service.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“To make room for further relief government will reduce its own spending by approximately fifty million dollars. We will cut thirty-five million dollars from goods and services, fifteen million dollars from the Capital 2 program. The goods and services cuts represents approximately twenty-dive percent of the ministry’s non-wage, non-pension spending. Many of these spendings are already locked in. You can’t touch them. But what we buy on a daily and weekly basis, there is where we believe we can save twenty-five percent, which will total to thirty-five million. And yes, Madam Speaker, we on this side, and I wish the other side would join us. We on this side have decided to cut our own ministerial allowances by fifty percent and I am hoping that the members on the other side would also offer to get a fifty percent cut. So, I am challenging you on the other side since we are doing it, you also should be doing the same. You notice they kept quiet. They didn’t hear that one.”

 

PM further noted that sixty million dollars have been lost in fuel tax reductions.

 

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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