On Friday, June 29th, the House of Representatives will meet as the Prime Minister Hon. Dean Barrow will present his first budget after winning the general elections in March of this year. In his quarterly presentation to the media, PM Barrow noted that it will be a challenging budget because of extreme after shocks being put on the country by international pressures.
One of those pressures is as a result of declining world oil prices, which will reduce the revenue from the oil industry by as much as 30 million dollars. But the international pressures are not the only ones which will affect the budget; the vaunted Super Bond will take a huge chunk of the budget on August 20th with a payment value of $46,994,422. That’s a hefty bite on an already tight budget and the country simply cannot afford to be making these kinds of payments. Because of the pressure those payments have on the country’s budget, government decided to tell bond holders that it simply cannot pay and they must come to the negotiating table. That is where the Superbond is and hopefully come August a new less strenuous payment schedule will be arrived at.
Even as the country struggles financially, the budget will feature relief for home owners and students when DFC will be writing off over 1 thousand loans. There will not be an introduction of any new taxes and the budget for National Security will be increased. The Education budget is also not expected to be greatly affected and the Prime Minister has pointed out that the Pro-Poor initiatives, which is benefitting thousands upon thousands of Belizeans will continue. Those initiatives include the BOOST program as well as the Food Pantry Program.
PM Barrow will make the full presentation on the budget on Friday, June 29th.
