Senate Debates $200 Million Supplementary Bills

Today in the Senate, lawmakers tackled two supplementary appropriation bills totaling a massive two hundred million dollars. Lead Government Senator Eamon Courtenay explained that some of the spending being approved is retroactive, while other portions look ahead to upcoming needs. These bills actually passed through the House of Representatives back in November, and Courtenay admitted the Senate’s second reading is late, but said it’s still important for the upper house to debate how this money is being spent. The opposition, however, wasn’t buying it. They accused the Briceño administration of poor fiscal planning and relying too heavily on after‑the‑fact approvals.

 

Eamon Courtenay, Lead Government Senator

“There is a combination of salaries for public officers and security officers. There is expenditure in health, the University of Belize, the Ministry of Sports, and passports for example. Most importantly there are investments for increase in the police department and for the Ministry of Rural Transformation, Community Development. The Blue Economy and Disaster Risk Management is getting an additional one point five million. A substantial amount of road works is factored in these two bills throughout the country.”

 

Patrick Faber, Lead Opposition Senator

“When it is that government identifies as a priority bringing these supplementary, I say kudos to that, I don’t want to take that away from them. But the manner in which these bills are brought suggest that they lack the proper planning. They are incompetent when it comes to putting together a national budget for this country. It is either that or that they are purposefully trying to present figures at the time of the budget presentation that is the budget look rosey and cosey as you will and later on come with these huge supplementary amounts to fix the problems that were ignored when they created the budget.”

 

The government insists these supplementary allocations cover everything from salaries and health spending to road works and police investments; however, the opposition says the real issue is planning, or the lack of it. They argue that ballooning supplements only show a budget that wasn’t built to hold up in the first place. We’ll keep watching how these approvals shape the year’s spending.