Belize has borrowed about $1.7 billion in four years says Lead Opposition Senator Michael Peyrefitte, raises alarm

Posted: Sunday, July 28, 2024. 1:27 pm CST.

By Jose Luis Cruz: Belize has borrowed an alarming $1.7 billion under the current administration with nothing to show for it says the Opposition during the recently held Senate meeting.

Senator Michael Peyrefitte criticized the government’s borrowing spree and questioned the need for two new loans from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), totaling $24 million, aimed at urban development and healthcare improvements.

“We keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing,” Peyrefitte lamented. “We keep hearing the Minister of Finance say we’re doing so well and the economy is expanding”. If the economy is expanding at such an alarming rate Peyrefitte questioned why do “we have to borrow approximately 50 million Belize dollars to do essential services for what I see you’re saying you want to do on paper”.

“We have come to this National Assembly and borrowed approximately 1.7 billion dollars, with a B, in four years, with nothing to show for it” Peyrifitte noted.

Peyrefitte hammered the government for its growing reliance on expensive consultants. “When you look at the details, for example the one with the healthcare delivery you’re talking about consultancies, each of these projects have line items where consultancies are more than a million US. If you look at the one for the sustainable urban development project administration management and audit, a million US, what is that?” Why are these project administration and consultancy expenses necessary when in “the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health, the people who will be executing these things already work for the government”, he argued.

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