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Last night, we showed you our interview with Education Minister Patrick Faber when he explained what happened why there will be no National Teachers Rally on Friday. He said that the Belize National Teachers Union knew that they were expected to contribute over $30,000 to the budget to get the event going, but they only offered $10,000.

Well today the Teachers Union released a statement today claiming that’s not how it went down. That statement says, quote, “the Ministry of Education’s position was that maybe we should not celebrate Teachers’ Day at the National level, since it was too expensive and the time for planning was limited.â€￾

The Union says that the representatives realized that there was some “rockinessâ€￾ – as Faber put it - in the relationship between the ministry and the union. They suggested that it was important to join forces to celebrate National Teachers’ Day. They also explained that due to heavy spending on activities carried out by the unions this year, they’re experiencing low cash flow. They were still willing to pledge $10,000 dollars. The union claims that the Ministry suggested at the initial meeting that they had $100,000 to pledge to the budget for the rally. The Union then felt that with their $10,000 pledge, the budget only needed $6,000 more. The Union also says that the Planning Committee identified areas where the budget could be cut down by as much as $4,000.

The statement ends stating that senior personnel at the Ministry didn’t seem willing to work with the limited budget, and quickly cancelled the celebration at the national level.

Tonight, Minister of Education Patrick Faber is sticking to his comments made yesterday. Â He says the release is “hogwashâ€￾ and that the union knew that they were expected to contribute a third of the budget, and took “foreverâ€￾ to respond to the request, only to say that they could only afford $10,000.