PSU Awaits Response from PM Briceno over Belize Tax Service Transition

Today marked the deadline for the government’s response on plans of making the Belize Tax Service into a statutory body. And so far, no reply has come. Two weeks ago, the Public Service Union wrote directly to the Prime Minister, and more than a month after their first position letter, which warned of serious risks to national revenue and the welfare of its members, they say they still have not received even an acknowledgment. Attached to the September nineteenth letter were seventy-two transfer requests from Tax Service employees, with today, October third, marking the official deadline for a response. This morning, PSU president Dean Flowers informed News Five that the government has yet to reply, and the union will now meet with its membership to decide on the next steps. Here is what Flowers said last week.

 

Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union

“The letter states clearly that we go back to the membership. We go back to the membership, and we’d say to them, the government is not interested in engaging on this matter. What do we do? And it is for the membership and more specifically for the officers in the affected department to determine whether they wish to get the government’s attention by force or whether they will say, well, this is Belize, man, we always make them do what they want to do. So make us leave them with what they want to do. It is for them to do that. Again, I will repeat, the public service union is a creature of instructions, and we lead based on the instructions given to us by the membership. And so if the government continues to act in this non-inclusive and extremely dictatorial and autocratic manner, then we have to report that back to the membership. And that’s why we’re keeping them abreast every step of the way. And we’re also keeping the Belizean people abreast every step of the way, because at the end of the day. This matter surpasses the Public Service Union and the workers in there. This matter is a national matter. This is a matter of national importance.”