PM Briceno Addresses Delays in Dissolving Public Service Workers’ Trust Fund

Prime Minister John Briceno says the government has been doing all it can to assist the Association of Beneficiaries and Retired Public Officers (ABRPO). Yesterday, the association held a press conference to call on the government to honor its promise of dissolving the Public Service Workers’ Trust Fund (PSWT). The association claimed that even after meeting with Prime Minister Briceno, there has been little to no progress in dissolving the trust. However, Prime Minister Briceno says the reason the process has stalled had been explained to the group. He says that a current court case brought by some 600 retired public officers against the leadership of the PSWT is the main issue. Briceno noted today that he has informed the association of the roadblock and what can be done to resolve it.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “We’ve been doing the best that we can. And there’s a group of public officers that have taken out a case. This is the last that I can remember. That’s in the Supreme Court. Before we could dissolve that trust they need to take out that case out of the Supreme Court. Because if we do that then the courts would come at us and say, well you can’t do that because it’s a matter, a live matter in the court. I’ve been telling, we’ve said from day one. let’s get that out of the… I had a meeting with them several months ago and said get that out of the court and they agreed that they were going to remove it from the court and then we were going to wind down or wind up that trust so that they should get their money. I support that. They should get their money because you’re saying they’re getting older, they’re dying or more than ever they need they help, they’re not working, they get sick so they have my full support.”

The beneficiaries of the trust are public officers whose salaries and increments were frozen between 1995 and 1997.