Belize City, Thursday, July 10, 2008 - Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dean Barrow is scheduled to present the first UDP Budget to the House of Representatives on Monday, July 14, 2007. Preliminary information received at The Belize Times confirms what many Belizeans have suspected of a National Budget that is, shamefully, five months late: in typical UDP style, it will be a bogus budget, raking in historically high taxes and offering merciless pittances to the people.

Revenues and grants for the 2008-2009 Budget Year will total $816.9 million, with total expenditures amounting to $824.7 million, for an overall deficit of $7.8 million or .31% of GDP (estimated at $2.558 billion for 2008/09).

The UDP has launched an wicked attack against the Constitutional rights of Belizeans. Under the guise of introducing constitutional reform, Dean Barrow in April, a mere two months  in office, unveiled what must have been a secret agenda to make some monster moves against the Constitution and the rights of Belizeans.

Among several proposals to change the Constitution, Barrow, who is the architect of the changes, slipped in some five or six matters which were never suggested to the Belizean people prior to elections.  Among the frightening proposals to change the Constitution are the following:

Sir Barry Bowen, Belize’s largest and most successful homegrown investor and businessman, has made history by filing a constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court asking the Chief Justice to strike down one of the more dangerous of Barrow’s proposed Constitutional amendments.

In his application to the Supreme Court, Sir Barry made it clear that he is not asking the court for any financial award, but that as a citizen of Belize, he cannot stand idly by and allow the Barrow government to take away two important and fundamental rights of all Belizeans. These are the rights to compensation for loss of property and the right to access the courts to seek redress.