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And the seriousness of that threat to simply not pay is what may have given government a slight upper hand in negotiations.  We say upper hand because somehow the creditor committee has accepted final offer without Government committing to a standby arrangement with the IMF.  Instead government has committed to fiscal targets, namely a primary surplus.  Here’s how the PM put it:…

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Minister of Finance
"We resisted the insistence of the then creditor committee that we enter into an IMF programme and we have so resisted again. People don't seem to understand that we have agreed that if we don't meet certain targets we will consult with the IMF, that takes the matter no further, we consult with the IMF every year. We're not suggesting that we will simply ignore whatever advise the IMF will choose to give; all I'm telling you is that our agreement in the context of this last renegotiations that we will publish what the IMF says, we will consult with them - represents not an iota, not one wit of change from what currently obtains. So basically we've given up nothing in terms of what was the original demand of the creditor committee that we enter into an IMF standby arrangement which is what I have sworn to the Belizean people will never happen for as long as I am here. Unfortunately that's not going to be for too much longer."

Michael Peyrefitte - Attorney General
"They really wanted certainty in an uncertain world and we told them we could not do that, we cannot give you guarantees and even if we were to give you guarantees we could not be held accountable for things that were not our fault because we could do our very best and still fall short."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"But going forward as I said we will make every effort to meet the primary surplus targets each year and if we don't make those targets while there are no penalties because we insisted there couldn't be any, we will then the following year try to play catch up."