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).

What is most scandalous about the UDP’s first Budget is actually what is NOT included. The UDP Budget has no provision for what they pledged before the elections such as the 5000 new jobs, 1000 new houses, national school feeding program, expanded Police Department, a new DFC, refurbished sugar roads, lower mortgage rates, special youth programs and an upgraded KHMH.

The UDP government expects to collect even more GST in the new budget - $8 million more than last year. The UDP expects to collect $10 million more in income taxes from working Belizeans, the so called PAYE. And the UDP plans to spend $2 million on new vehicles for Ministers and their cronies. What happened to their pledges to lower PAYE and reduce the GST?

The only provision for new houses is a pitiful $1 million that the UDP are hoping to borrow; this will build 30 houses at best. At that rate, Belizeans can expect no more than 150 houses for the entire 5 year term of the UDP.

As for sugar roads, which the UDP Opposition swore they would address immediately after the election, they will actually spend LESS than what the PUP spent last year, $600,000 less.   

For Belizeans hoping that the UDP would give special attention to healthcare, there is yet more bad news. The KHMH will receive no increase in their budget allocation, not a penny more. In fact, the UDP will REDUCE the allocation for medical supplies by a whopping $1.1 million. Consistent with their pre-election threat, the UDP makes no financial provision for NHI.

And what of the UDP’s much vaunted free tuition for high school students? Well, apparently only students belonging to UDP families will get financial help since initial figures obtained by the Belize Times suggest that the proposed budget allocation will leave out more than 6,000 high school students from getting their $300 grant promised by the UDP. And, there appears to be no provision of monies for the national feeding program that the UDP had pledged.

The lack of confidence in the UDP is demonstrable in the anemic growth of the economy, just 1.2% during the last year. Out of fear of the UDP, no doubt, business interests withheld their spending and new investments shrank. Yet, the projection for the economy’s growth is 5.3% in 2008/2009. Clearly, such a projection is ambitious to the extent of being misleading. How will this be achieved in the face of the $79 million loss caused by Tropical Storm Arthur, as one example?

After five months of waiting for the UDP’s Budget, Belizeans who were hoping this version of the UDP had changed their stripes will be sorely disappointed. The Barrow Budget was written hook, line and sinker by the cold and heartless bean counters of the IMF and the other multilateral agencies, with no regard for the suffering of the masses of the Belizeans people. This Budget gives no relief for skyrocketing food prices and unaffordable fuel prices. It offers no low interest loans for farmers and entrepreneurs. It fails to provide any income tax breaks. It is vintage UDP – stingy, orthodox and hollow.