Allowances for Government CEO’s Fully Restored

Allowances for government CEOs have been restored to one hundred percent. That was confirmed today by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance John Briceno in an interview this morning. In a circular dated September 8, 2022, Cabinet Secretary Stuart Leslie writes to all Chief Executive Officers, saying (quote) “approval is hereby granted to vary the employment contracts of Chief Executive Officers- and Other Allowance (Living and Entertainment Allowance) from seven hundred and fifty dollars monthly to one thousand five hundred dollars monthly with effect from 1st July 2022.” (end of quote) That’s the same date when the salaries of public officers and teachers were fully restored. PM Briceno explains why.  

John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize: “Remember the CEOs their allowances was cut so what it’s doing is basically just giving them back what they had before the pandemic.”

Reporter: I hear that.

John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize: “Thank you, next question.”

Reporter: But do you think that is –

John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize: “I said next question. You want to ask the CEO’s ? I’m sure they will -“

Reporter: The thing sir is that the Belizean people are suffering economically.

John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize: “You need to stop just saying things for saying it without the empirical evidence. If you look at the empirical evidence more and more Belizeans are working. Right now the unemployment rate is at 9.2% that’s the lowest rate in the past five years. The new survey or labour survey is going to be out soon we just did one and it seems that it shows that unemployment is going to go down even more. People are going back to work because of the work that our government has been doing. The CEOs feel that their allowances were cut and so now they believe now that it’s time for them to give it back. The government workers got back their 10% and so they feel okay well they were not cut their salaries but their allowances were cut so we need to give it back to them. Remember – anyway we’ll leave it at that.”