And while the Prime Minister had time to send well wishes for a colleague with whom he has often sparred, he had no kind words for the Public Service Union.
As we told you, his government and the PSU are locked in a dispute over annual increments. Government wants the Union to fully forego this year's increment, the union wants it deferred so that they can get it back sometime down the road when government's finances improve.
As we have been reporting, those finances are in the gutter right now. Because the country and the economy has been on lockdown, revenue collection has gone down by more than half. This leaves them with not even enough money to pay public officers, according to the PM:
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"Consider finally that the Government's monthly wage bill is 45 million dollars. That means that the 41.2 million collected from business tax, GST and Customs in April could not meet that 45-million-dollar monthly wage bill. The story still does not end there because there are, of course, Government's other operating expenses. These include debt service, utilities, supplies, fuel, and capital spending; and they amount to another 45 million dollars for a total Government of Belize monthly outlay of 90 million dollars. But, I repeat, we only collected 41.2 million dollars in April and expect no more than 30 million altogether in May."
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