MAGIC & MARVEL OF PLANBELIZE

Continued from page 1 knowledged all women: “And in this month, when we celebrate the achievements of women worldwide, we can report the successful implementation of the Women Economic Empowerment Project, which in its first full year of implementation, has already included 44 new initiatives worth more than 2.6 million dollars.” Without a doubt when parity becomes normalcy and when history dissects the rise of equal opportunity, the planBelize government will be seen a champions and innovators in making sure that really everyone wins in all ways possible.

It cannot be lost that “68,000 fewer Belizeans are poor, according to the last poverty assessment.” It cannot be hidden from the accolades that poverty is on a massive decline. As the world is officially in a pandemic and as the mighty ‘developed’ nation infect us with their inflation, wars, and anti-environmental habits, Belize is exhibiting double-digit GDP growth

Historic Agreement Pension Reform Agreement GoB - Unions

Unions Get Increment on April 1st

On March 7, 2023, Cabinet received a report from the Ministerial Consulting Team that has been engaged in meetings with the Joint Unions on the important issues of Increments and Pension Reform. Following that report, Cabinet agreed on the following three points (1) Increments for all public officers and teachers would be unfrozen effective 1st April 2023. (2) The Ministerial Team would continue discussions with the Joint Unions Negotiating Team (JUNT) on the matter of the two increment points lost. Those discussions would be based on specific economic performance targets in the fiscal year 2024/25 and beyond. (3) The government will implement a phased approach to the Public Sector Pension Reform. In phase one, the goal is to institute, effective 1st July 2023, a new contributory pension scheme applicable only to new entrants into the Belize Public Service. Phase two will include a comprehensive review of the existing Public Service Pension Scheme to determine how to make it more effective, efficient, and sustainable. For this purpose, a working group will be established, including the government, JUNT, the National Trade Union Congress of Belize, GAMAS, and the private sector.

Prime Minister Hon. John Briceño noted that “In this Financial Year 2022/23, Government will have spent 95 million dollars on the pension plan for public officials. In the next budget, 2023/24 the spending rises to 100 million dollars.”

Prime Minister Hon. Briceño goes on to state, “I have said publicly, and I say again: this budget line spending is neither sustainable nor fair. To illustrate, this year the SSB is projected to collect some 140 million dollars in contributions and pay out some 110 million dollars in benefits. This is the nature of a contributory pension scheme.”

Now Belize is an outlier in every material respect so far as retirement age, replacement rate, and contribution rate are concerned. As elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America, public officers’ pension schemes are contributory.

PM Briceño stated, “The average replacement rate, that is, the average pension divided by average earnings in the entire Latin America and Caribbean Region is 61.9 percent. In Belize, the average replacement rate for public officers, when combining social security pension is at 27.9 percent and public officers’ non-contributory pension at 67.5 percent, both of which public officers would be entitled to, is 95.4 percent, a whopping 33.5 percent above the regional average.”

Almost everywhere else in this region, the voluntary age of retirement is 60 years, and the mandatory retirement age of 65 years. In the Caribbean, countries with special pension plans for public officials tend to have higher retirement ages, 60 years in the case of Trinidad & Tobago and Suriname, for example, and 65 years plus in the case of Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, and Barbuda. The IMF has presented its formula for public pension reform and sustainability which involves a contribution rate of 10 percent (of wages), half of which - or 5 percent - to be contributed by public officers; raising the current retirement age from 55 to 65; and reducing the replacement rate from 67 percent to 50 percent, all to be gradually phased in over time.

Prime Minister Briceño stated, “I’m happy to report that at a recent meeting of the Ministerial Consulting Team that has been engaged in and single digit unemployment. All this while the neediest are receiving homes, land, free education, and a double-digit percentage rise in the minimum wage to five dollars. The social forces that breed crime have noticed and crime is also on a decline. PlanBelize pushes it… multisectoral meant that all things in this paragraph will wage war on crime NOT increase in policing. The skeptics are believing; their silence is deafening.

The MIDH and its home distribution and building of really-resilient infrastructure is well documented. But often, flying under the radar is the former hotbed of UDP corruption which is now a real hotbed of seedlings of hope for many fami- meetings with the Joint Unions on the important issues of Increments and Pension Reform, significant progress was made. The update was positive, as the Joint Unions have agreed to a phased implementation of a contributory pension scheme, having recognized that the current pension scheme is unsustainable. The JUNT team agreed to three phases: The first phase of the contributory pension scheme will commence with persons entering the Public Service as of 1st July 2023; and the unions have agreed to work with the Government on mechanisms for a second phase rollout, where other public officers will be included in the contributory pension scheme and lastly replacement rate. For sure, we must applaud our ministerial team but, more so, the Joint Unions team for this historic and unprecedented collaboration and achievement.

Discussions were also held and only the two increments under the Briceño administration will be reviewed in 2024/2025. The other increment under the previous government was forgone by the previous negotiations team and the then-Barrow Administration.

Hon. Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service, Constitutional and Political Reform, and Religious Affairs “We got work on the very first day and we are always there to ensure that the public officers get what they deserve and what they are entitled to.”

He wanted to express, “I want to thank all public officers for the sacrifices that they have made over the past two-plus years first with the salary adjustment which I was happy that we could have returned 2 years earlier, and the unfreezing the increments this year, one year earlier than the set date. What is important is that there is a partnership to get back those increments, then let’s work together to make sure we get that done.”

-Esau Ferguson lies—the Land department in the Ministry of Natural Resources under DPM Cordel Hyde. The homes distribution by the MIDH will see increased demand because of the success of mobile land clinics. “And that is why, with support from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, is spearheading a survey and distribution program for almost 11,000 parcels in areas of all six districts. Final surveys have been funded and are almost completed. Assigning a modest value of ten thousand per lot would mean that this program alone represents a 110-million-dollar transfer of wealth to qualified landowners.” All Ministries contribute to the success of all ministries. Apologies to Minister Musa, but all planBelize is really a multisectoral approach. This world-renowned Manifesto has a Bugatti-type engine that is oiled and fine-tuned with a Midterm Development Strategy. PlanBelize with all its success has been upgraded…wow!!

“How distant now do those bleak, final days of the UDP appear, those desperate times when the government had to borrow a million dollars a day to pay public officer salaries and borrow just to keep the lights on? How distant now are those traumatic times when Belize had effectively defaulted on its international commercial debt and when the devaluation of our dollar seemed inevitable? To that chaos and hopelessness, we shall never return. Not so long as we remain faithful to our sacred pledge that “Everybody Fi Win - Todos Ganamos!” Prime Minister John Briceño keeps leading the nation with a grit and compassion that the “world itself cannot give.”

Founder: Rt. Hon. George Cadle Price, People’s United Party Leader Emeritus OFFICE