Petrocaribe...it seems that whoever you talk to about this divisive issue, it's either the country's saving grace, or a downfall foretold.
Well, at the last press conference held by Prime Minister Dean Barrow, he made comments to the effect that the teachers and public officers, who don't agree with the Petrocaribe Loans Act, have benefitted from the funds indirectly. He said that this windfall has allowed the Government to afford their 10% salary increase over two years. He added that the executive members of the labour movement are also participating in petrocaribe programs, such as the National Bank.
So, is the BNTU a petrocaribe partner? Or, put differently, are they complicit? We got a chance to speak with National President about it today, and he told us that he wanted to set the Prime Minister straight. He said that the PM is misleading the public:
Luke Palacio, President, Belize National Teachers Union
"The Prime Minister has once again tried to mislead this nation. When the matter of the salary adjustment was discussed, negotiated and agreed upon, a formula was given. We were criticized for accepting that formula. And the formula speaks to the revenue that government gets one year over the revenue it gets the other year. Nothing in that formula that was proposed, speaks of any PetroCaribe. Nothing says 'this revenue will be generated because PetroCaribe will help us to save some money'. That is not what it is. So definitely we can categorically say to the Prime Minister that, that is definitely not true. The formula is based on the revenue that government collects from its sources. Particularly taxes, that then we will share 50/50 of the outcome of that. 50% goes to the union, whatever that comes up to then that will determine the salary adjustment that we are to get. So please we want the Belizean people to understand that BNTU nor the Public Service Union and the Association of the Public Service Senior Managers were ever told that this has to do or is linked to PetroCaribe. So we want to clear that up, thank you for the question. The other point we want to clear up. Because, when I listen to the repeat on the news of the Prime Minister's press conference, he also said that we negotiated - that the unions negotiated to be on the board of the National Bank. And again that is untrue. That was an offer the Prime Minister made to the unions. The three unions that were negotiating, he said 'I'm going to start the National Bank. And on that bank I am prepared to give you the unions $10,000,000 for your members to use, to access.' And we were like 'well what do we do?' and he said 'if you don't want it then we give it to somebody else.' So we said 'okay we will take up that offer,' but again it was not something that was negotiated. So I thought we needed to clear that up as well."
Email
Print