Opposition Leader Criticizes Government Over Continued Teacher Payment Delays

On Friday we told you of the dozens of teachers whose payments were delayed in terms of increments.  The Belize National Teachers Union (BNTU) had called a press conference urging the government to expedite payment.  Shortly after, the Ministry of Education issued a statement committing to the disbursement of payments for the majority of the teachers whose documents were in order.  Love News learnt late this evening that the ministry did fulfill its promise and that those who are yet to be paid would have to wait a bit longer due to pending documents.  That aside, however, our newsroom also learnt that since the union’s press conference more and more teachers are popping up with the same claim of delayed payments.  We were unable to confirm a figure in terms of the new claims but by all indications, these teachers lack the necessary paperwork to have their claims processed.  Speaking on this issue today was the Leader of the Opposition, Moses Shyne Barrow, who called out the government on what he says are undelivered promises to the teachers.

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Leader of the Opposition: “The payment of the teachers you know we’re very startled that 130 teachers had to call a press conference along with the BNTU president to demand their pay. This is a far cry from the People’s United Party that promised a 20% increase, that promised that they would give scholarships and give financing for teachers to be able to have a continued development programming and this is just the complete opposite of everything that the People’s United Party had promised and for it to get to a point where the BNTU is calling a press conference to complain about these matters. This is in conjunction or on the heels of the teachers protesting on Independence Day due to the lack of increments. Remember we had increment freeze in 2020 due to COVID19 but the Honorable Prime Minister has bragged and boasted to anyone that would listen that the economy has recovered robustly and in his words the economy has grown every quarter since the People’s United Party has taken office thus the teachers want to know with such great economic activity why can’t they get their increments ? Now we have instances of teachers not being as I said with the BNTU president, the national president at the head table in a press conference demanding pay for the teachers. This again follows with the continued development hours that the teachers have not been able to get due to cost of living, due to not getting their increments due to not getting their pay on time and we see no solution for this government. Whenever you have the president of the BNTU demanding at a press conference that these matters be fixed that means things have broken down irreconcilably.”

As it relates to what the ministry refers to as an antiquated payout system, LOO Barrow says that is not an acceptable justification.  He went further by calling on the government to give teachers an increase in salary. Another point of contention that Barrow focused on had to do with what he terms as electoral fraud, particularly in Cayo North.  A few weeks ago, Omar Figueroa – the UDP Standard Bearer, wrote to the Governor General with claims of electoral fraud, saying that persons who do not reside in the area are being illegally registered at the Elections and Boundaries. 

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Leader of the Opposition: “When you look at the issue with Dr.Omar Figueroa in Cayo North where there are a hundred people living in one place. I know that the media paid keen attention and had a significant interest in me transferring to my residence in Mesopotamia and I was the only person to transfer to that address in the last transfer period last year. There have been a total of ten people that transferred over an eight year, seven year period. The media paid very very keen interest to that but I invite you guys to pay interest to a hundred people in this transfer period registering at one house if my numbers serve me correct a significant amount if it’s not the 100 it’s 50, it’s a significant amount that cannot fit in the two bedroom bungalow that they’re claiming to reside and you merge that so that’s a form of electoral fraud and you merge that with the nationality documents, the decentralization of the nationality documents which instinctively you’d be alarmed that you’d take the most important document, again we’re talking about electrons we have to put it in the context of elections people that vote decide who are area representatives are going to be, the people that vote decide what constitutional amendments will happen based on the government that they elect.”

There is more to report from the UDP’s Press Conference later in this newscast including Barrow’s remarks on the upcoming convention.