Minister Usher Says He Would Accept Cut to Allowance

Minister Henry Charles Usher has weighed in on the rising cost of living and suggestions that ministers’ allowances should be reduced as Belizean households face financial pressure.  Usher says discussions on ways to cushion the impact on local consumers come up regularly in Cabinet. He also says he would be willing to accept a cut to his allowance.

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Disaster Risk Management: “Yes, I have no problem with it. I’ve heard that discussion come up before and if that’s the decision then I am very prepared to support that decision. There’s never enough that you can do. And so every time we have a meeting we try to come up with different ideas, we try to come up with different initiatives. I’m happy that October 1st we were able to implement the cost adjustment for public officers, teachers, and security personnel, a 4% salary increase. Again, that’s another initiative that costs money and we have to be able to fund that initiative. But there are other areas that we need to look at and certainly looking at how we can reduce the cost of basic groceries is very important.”

Usher also pointed to external factors affecting prices, saying Belize is not alone in feeling the effects of economic shocks around the world.

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Disaster Risk Management: “We have addressed the cost of living issue in numerous cabinets and we have seen initiatives taken by the government, decisions made in terms of making sure that individuals have more resources, more money in their pocket to be able to ameliorate the effects of what’s happening right now in the global economy. I just recently read a report from the UNDP that says that developing countries are facing three shocks at the same time, a rising cost of energy caused by what’s happening in the Middle East. We have the El Nino effect causing severe drought affecting our farmers, affecting our waterways. And thirdly, we have the inflation that’s actually raising the cost of acquiring money, capital investment. So these three shocks are happening at the same time. Economists like to talk about, they have a saying, they say, “ceteris paribus,” right? They say all other things remaining equal or remaining the same. Right now that’s not happening. We’re having multiple shocks happen at the same time so we have to be able to have tools available to respond to those multiple shocks. I’m very ready to contribute at the cabinet level as to some ideas that we have in terms of making sure that we reduce the cost of living, reduce the cost of groceries to our citizens and to look at different areas where we can save them. Of course it’s always a balancing act. You remove some people are saying oh let us remove the taxes on this or let us reduce or let us subsidize but if you do that then you take money away from other initiatives and like you said we’ll talk about disaster risk management right now but that is something that’s an area that we also have to find priority resources for.”