By: Omar Silva, Editor/Publisher

🗞 NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE BELIZE – DIGITAL 2025

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Tuesday May 13, 2025

Editorial

Prime Minister John Briceño’s latest national budget isn’t a plan—it’s a political performance wrapped in illusions, half-truths, and economic fantasies. With $1.78 billion in spending, this administration would like the Belizean people to believe that prosperity is around the corner. But peel back the propaganda, and the truth is bitter, brutal, and unavoidable: we are on the edge of economic suffocation, and this government is watching it happen with folded arms and lofty speeches.

Let’s stop pretending. Let’s stop being polite. Belize is bleeding, and Briceño’s budget is little more than a bandage for a bullet wound.

48 Government Projects Frozen. And This Is “Growth”?

The PM loves to boast of 8.2% GDP growth, but what does that mean to a single mother in Punta Gorda with no job, no food basket, and no access to affordable electricity?

We have over 48 government-funded projects currently on freeze—from housing to healthcare centers, infrastructure to education programs. Contractors have downed tools. Teachers haven’t seen their increments. Nurses are under strain. Government offices are barely functioning. And yet, Briceño parades these GDP figures as if they feed stomachs or fix roofs.

The MCC Grant Is Dead. Stop Peddling False Hope.

The Prime Minister continues to dangle the $125 million Millennium Challenge Corporation grant like some miracle cure—even though the U.S. has shut the door. Belize was never properly prepared. We failed to meet the standards. And now, with Washington in the iron grip of Donald Trump’s return to hardline tariffs and aid freezes, that money is gone.

Still, Briceño stands before Parliament, daydreaming aloud, saying the door is "slightly open." No, Mr. Prime Minister. It is shut. And Belizeans deserve better than delusion.

An Import Economy on the Brink

Belize is a country that produces almost nothing at scale. Our export sector is stagnant, barely able to keep sugar and shrimp afloat. Meanwhile, we import food, fuel, clothes, cars, construction materials, medicines, machinery, and more.

And now, with Trump’s new wave of global tariffs and trade wars, the prices of these imported essentials will skyrocket. But what does Briceño’s budget say about this? Nothing. Not a word. No cushion. No strategy. No contingency fund. Just shiny roads and speeches about cruise tourism.

The 2-to-1 Peg Is a Noose Around Our Necks

With our dollar pegged to the U.S. Dollar at 2 to 1, every time America sneezes, Belize gets pneumonia. We are absorbing imported inflation without producing our way out of it. We are borrowing and spending while our people work harder for less. And we are still feeding a bloated wage bill of $698 million, while public servants and teachers get stonewalled when asking for basic improvements.

That’s not national development. That’s a nation on fiscal life support.

“7 Out of 10 Belizeans Are Working”? Prove It.

The Prime Minister claims that 97 out of every 100 Belizeans who want to work are working. That’s a statistical insult to thousands of Belizeans who live pay check to pay check—or have no pay check at all.

Ask the young man selling plantains on the sidewalk. Ask the woman washing clothes by hand for $25 a day. Ask the unemployed youth in Dangriga or Orange Walk or Corozal with a CXC certificate but no opportunity. What "employment" are they counted under? Informal? Underpaid? Temporary?

This is not employment—it is economic survival. And this budget does nothing to dignify their struggle.

Infrastructure for Who? Cruise Ships or Communities?

Over $528 million has been allocated to infrastructure, with a chunk aimed at a $400 million mega-port for cruise ships. Meanwhile, rural communities still lack proper roads, clean water, and working health posts. But the cruise ships will dock on time, right?

This budget shows exactly where this government’s priorities lie: glamour over grassroots. Concrete over compassion. Headlines over human dignity.

Final Word: Belize Deserves Truth, Not Theatre

John Briceño may believe this budget tells a story of strength. But for the rest of us living on the ground, this is a tale of betrayal. A tale of a government that boasts while its people beg. A tale of an economy inflated on illusion while the social fabric unravels.

This is not "From Promise to Performance."

This is From Fantasy to Freefall.

And if we, the people, do not demand accountability, realism, and transformation—we will all sink together while the cruise ships sail past our pain.