After 2 full days – just before 5 this evening Prime Minister Dean Barrow wrapped up the budget debate at the National Assembly Building in Belmopan. The budget is for $825 million, the biggest yet, but the wrangling on house floor over the past two days was more about politics than it was about policy. New PUP leader Johnny Briceno and his deputy leaders Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde spoke yesterday and so did the UDP’s John Saldivar, Boots Martinez, and Patrick Faber. But there was anticipation about today’s debate because this morning it was the much pilloried former Prime Minister Said Musa’s turn. This was his first budget debate on the opposition side of the house in ten years – and in the face of a hostile gallery he came out swinging.

Hon. Said Musa, Fort George Area Rep.
“The finances of this country were in good shape when the UDP took office in February of 2008. Money was in the treasury and over $217 million in the reserves.

What the UDP found when they took office was an economy that was back on track. As the Leader of the Opposition demonstrated in his presentation yesterday, the measures taken by the PUP government in financial management and fiscal performance with the successful debt restructuring, tough decisions that were taken even before the general election, yes Mr. Speaker has put Belize on the path to sustainable development. In his presentation the Hon. Prime Minister grudgingly had to admit that the previous government met and in fact exceeded all its key fiscal targets in March 2007. You cannot deny that the overall deficit was reduced to less than 1%, in fact to .63% of GDP, exceeding even our own target that we had set to 0.97%.

Today however less than six months after this government took office….”

[Inaudible exchange with Hon. Dean Barrow]

Hon. Said Musa,
“You want to answer why they voted you out in 1998, why they kept you out in 2003? Today however less than six months later the economy is coming to a screeching halt unless you do something about it quickly. Belize is now facing the economic phenomenon of an economic slowdown, so called recession compounded by an out of control high cost of living, inflation, and we know what that means Mr. Speaker: recession, inflation – that is stag-flation staring us in the face.

What is happening here it is a karaoke performance we are seeing noh. The same song, only now the karaoke singer is somewhat more glitzy. He has a 24 piece orchestra with him but he is fast finding out that each member of that orchestra is beginning to play his own different tune. And soon the harmony will lead to a cacophony.

And the people out there who are facing the rising cost of living with bread fifty cents more now, they are the ones that you should be looking after. Deal with the high cost of living. Noh watch me, watch yourself.”