BELIZEANS HOLIDAY IN GUATEMALA, at RIO DULCE

** The Winnie Estelle, former 100 year old Chesapeake cargo boat, a historical US vessel still in work.
** Our temporary home in the Rio Dulce, on the WINNIE ESTELLE, a 65 foot boat.
Hot springs off Lake Izabal, Guatemala.
*** The HOT water falls pouring into the very cold mountain creek. Your bottom is cold, but the head and shoulders get inundated with hot water. The minnows in the cold creek bite like heck, taking off your dead skin. VERY NICE SPOT THOUGH! You can reach it by collectivo mini-van from Rio Dulce and enter at the gate, paying a small fee to walk up the shaded jungle trail to the hot springs.




A HOLIDAY TIME IN GUATEMALA AND BELIZE

We spent the weekend down in Susana Marina sleeping on the 68 ft., Chesapeake refurbished cargo boat, the WINNIE ESTELLE, skippered by Robert Smith , retired from Tourism in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye in Rio Dulce, Guatemala. I used to run this 30 ton cargo boat, buying lumber in Puerto Cortez, Honduras and selling the lumber in Belize some forty years ago when a young man, sea captain. This Rio DULCE area has dozens of marinas for world traveling yachts along the Rio Dulce river banks, in fresh water. Must be 500 yachts, most of which cost more money than my previously owned HOSTEL. Huge yachts and lots of big ocean going catamarans, which seem to be in favor, by the person living aboard and traveling the world by water. The MARINA was full, due to the Hurricane Season and yacht people were sitting out the Hurricane season here, some 26 miles up river at the mouth of Lake Izabal. My daughter Tina Auxillou of Caye Caulker, TINA’s beachfront HOSTEL fame, was due to arrive, as she was crewing a big catamaran delivery from San Pedro in Northern Belize, down there also, to sit out the Hurricane Season. Tina was to park across the dock from the WINNIE ESTELLE. We didn’t meet, as we arrived some days before she even left San Pedro and she probably would not arrive until a couple of days after we left, coming under sail alone. Rio Dulce was packed with Guatemalan tourists. It is a small village stretched along the highway before the high span bridge across the river, near the Lake entrance. There are a lot more Mayan villages accessible by water along the river banks. It’s hard to tell the tourists from the locals, as they are all dressed up in Indian costume mostly.
The TOUR BUSES, SPECIAL EXCURSIONS and BUS CHARTERS were coming in from all over Guatemala. From as far away as the Pacific Coast and Mexican border on the Pacific. Nearly all of them Mayan Indians in their colorful costumes, blouses and skirts. One of our planned things to do, was the trip down the Rio Dulce gorge to Livingston and back by public water taxi. About 26 miles each way, with a stop at the old Spanish Fort on the river. Unfortunately, the water taxies were packed like sardines with Guatemalan tourists ( different Mayan Indian language groupings , in colorful costumes, from all over Guatemala ). We abandoned the idea of that excursion, jam packed in the hot sun like that for this trip. I think it was a National holiday weekend? Prices were more or less the same as in Caye Caulker for tourists. Pretty high, compared to how we travel and eat in Western Belize TWIN TOWNS where we live. Though we found food and prices more to our local appetites and customs in cuisine when we got away from the tourist centers, and ate where the ordinary farm people eat in the Rio Dulce. Mostly we cooked aboard. Roberto had a neat grill, sort of like a hub cap, that he could place on his butane burner and grill chicken, or fish. Great food mon! I want one, said he bought it at Simon Quan hardware in Belize City. Next trip to the city will look for one. I want one of those small portable ovens too, you place on a one burner stove. Haven’t seen those in Belize for baking, since kerosene cooking went out of style some decades ago in favor of Butane gas.
We spent a lovely day sailing on Lake Izabal, the first time for me on that lake. I was surprised to find average depth was only 45 feet with a mud shrimping bottom. The boat was a sailing boat, 32 ft, trawler configuration, recently bought by Marcos who has the MOPAN HOTEL on the Melchor, Guatemalan side of the frontier, between Guatemalan Immigration and the MOPAN river. The entrance is to the side of the new river bridge, the Guatemalans are building at our frontier in the WEST. Marcos used to live in CALLA CREEK in Western Belize, but believe the story is; that he and his wife divorced and she went off with Fairweather the surveyor. Marcos a SWISS by birth, tall lanky fella, moved across the frontier and got married again. His helper on the yacht for the weekend was Sergio, a cheerful OAS diplomat from Belize duty, who is from Paraguay. Then there was my wife Silvia and I. Anyway, Marcos is now the proud new owner of a yacht in a Rio Dulce marina. ( with help he sailed it down from Texas - lot of cheap yachts for sale these days ) ( Marina dockage in Isla Mujeres, Mexico was quoted at $800 usa / month. Average in Rio Dulce is $150 to $200 usa per month with electricity, water, laundry facility, toilets and hammocks in the marina, with restaurant. ) We eventually got dropped off half way down the lake at FINCA PARAISO and spent the night there in a lakeside cabin with two bedrooms and bath for $50 Bze. Marcos and Sergio went off learning to sail and handle the boat alone and got caught by a storm building up over the mountain range dividing Guatemala and Honduras. The storm move over the Southern side of the Lake and they got the fringes of it, with dark falling, we watched them drop sails, then lightening bolts started hitting the water all around them, as dark fell over the scene. That had to be a thrilling introduction to ownership of your first yacht solo trip. Especially since your mast and boat is the highest conductor around over the Lake water. We also got to see and swim in the very cold mountain creek, under the very hot volcanic hot springs waterfall on the FINCA PARAISO, which has become a tourist destination on the North side of Lake Izabal. You can get to the hot springs waterfall by collective passenger vans along the lake road. Lovely spot shaded by trees in flavor similar to the Hummingbird Highway Blue Hole cenote swimming spot in Belize. Most of the tourists were Guatemalan and a sprinkling of Europeans. We returned to the Rio Dulce by local collectivo mini-van bus on the lakeside road, ( about 22 miles - $6 Bz ) which is NEW and being paved as I write. We slept two nights on the boat WINNIE ESTELLE and one at Finca Paraiso on the lake shore. Did a lot of swimming in the fresh water Rio Dulce, where our boat was docked in the marina. Just jumped over the side every time it got hot and swam around to cool off. Since the MACAL RIVER here in Belize is now polluted by the hydro dam, muddy discharge and killed off the fish and river bed, you can’t find any place to swim anymore in OUR, Santa Elena Town. You can’t even see the bottom, the mud is so thick. They tell us; take the mud, or the electricity, but you can’t have both. Goodbye pristine Macal River!
We found the best bus from Rio Dulce to the capital of the Peten, Santa Elena on lake Flores, was one called RAPIDO del SUR. It runs from Guatemala City to the capital of the Department of the Peten via the Puerto Barrios main highway, during the daytime and then dog legs up into the Department of the Peten. There is an agriculture check point on the dogleg. All roads are paved. The highway from Santa Elena, Peten to the Melchor de Menchos frontier is being paved with asphalt and has reached within 28 miles of Melchor on our Western border. The road is much improved and faster now. A lot happens in Guatemala in six months, since the last time we came this way. The same bus returns during the night to Guatemala City from Santa Elena - PETEN, then turns around and comes back South during the day.
What amazed me was the INTERNAL Guatemalan tourism, which we are missing in Belize. Due partly to the Melchor road, but which should be finished by Christmas and partly to the impression given Guatemalan tourists by our rip off, overcharging taxi drivers at the Western Border. Nor does there seem any particular interest in regional tourism by our institutional agency the Belize Tourist Board? A coastal Creole bias from our port town, who control our Belize Government, against our wealthier neighbors? The plane flights were full of Guatemalan tourists to TIKAL, mostly Mayan Indians seeing their country and heritage. Our port town folk, and the bureaucrats seem to think Guatemalans are all poor folks. Whoooosh! Not at all! Ordinary folk have cell phones, and computers. Most very remote FINCAS and ranches we found had satellite dishes, but these do not operate the same as the favored USA HUGHES satellite systems imported into Belize. They are sold by CLARO, one of the Guatemalan telecommunications companies. The satellite dishes seem to be using the VENEZUELAN satellite over Caracas? That is my guess from the angle and direction they are pointing? I plan to check this out more. In Banco Rural in Guatemala, ( Santa Elena – Department of PETEN branch ) we found brochures for computers, laptops and desktops at the same prices you would buy in the USA, from discount places like Tiger Direct, or Wal Mart. Banco Rural was financing them, or you got them cheaper if you paid cash. We plan to get our next computer from over the border. Why fly to the USA, when you can get USA cheap prices next door? Somebody must be importing from CHINA direct into Guatemala?
We had a good vacation though. Delightful indeed. The swimming off the boat we were staying on, was the best thing, several times a day. Loved it and the exercise at my old age. The camaradie of the marina was excellent too, with aboard drinking parties and food. Most of the huge yachts owners were absent though. Not many people in the marina, just lots of huge expensive yachts. I counted about 50 yachts in our marina where we were staying in the Rio Dulce.

Belize, Caye Caulker, Pelicans die off, signal catastrophe of environment at Caye Caulker.

*** Pelicans nearly extinct on Caye Caulker.




CAYE CAULKER HAS ENVIRONMENTAL ECOLOGICAL DISASTER!

by Ray Auxillou, September, 7, 2009

Just spent a weekend at my home island of Caye Caulker, a mile inside the Great Barrier Reef of Belize. During my lifetime and mostly during the period of the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s I had the job of counting PELICANS all along the Great Barrier Reef chain of islands and offshore in the three ATOLLS. My business in those younger days, carried me widely in my boats around the reefs and islands. The PELICAN COUNT was sent to Dr. Henry Hildebrand of the University of Corpus Christi, Texas. Since that time, the annual visit of new marine biology students to Caye Caulker and my six week logistics supply for them and guiding came to an end, when the private University was sold to the State of Texas and the Marine Biology program was closed. I helped train a lot of future parks and game professionals for the State of Texas.
Part of the volunteer work I was asked to perform over several decades, were the PELICAN count. The Pelican is the top of the food chain for the Great Barrier Reef islands in Belize. You tell the health of the islands and shallows and nurseries by the PELICAN COUNT.
This weekend the PELICAN count for Caye Caulker was one old solitary bird, cruising all by itself on the North side of the Split. Pelicans are social birds and usually travel in flocks of a dozen or more.
The ordinary count for Caye Caulker village ran around 50 PELICANS sitting on piers and posts in front of the village. They feed off SPRAT a sort of sardine, that grows up in the mangrove roots.
The fact that PELICANS are distressed into almost extinction at Caye Caulker should set off alarm bells, as one step up the food chain are humans. If PELICANS are disappearing from some disastrous change in the ecological environment, then humans will soon follow.
I do not know the problem here. Some other generation will have to find out. Though I do remember that the Gulf of Mexico around thirty years ago had a similar PELICAN die off. Which was traced eventually to pesticides in the Gulf waters, running off the land. The pesticides made the new born in their eggs, have very thin shells and the birds did not reach to the point of hatching in a proper time limit and died by their thousands. The Gulf of Mexico did eventually rebuild their PELICAN populations.
I never did counts of FRIGATE BIRDS, but normally about a hundred birds would be flying back and forth along the barrier islands, on either side of Caye Caulker. This weekend, I only counted TEN FRIGATE BIRDS in total.
My only hope by this article is to sound the ALARM, as this development has serious implications for HUMANS as well.

Belize Home photos of the Auxillou family in Belize

*** Three generations of Auxillou's. Grandpa Ray Auxillou ( 72 years ), Diane Auxillou, 3rd youngest daughter and grandson 11 year old Dillon Kuylen.




*** Photo of Grandpa Ray Auxillou ( 72 years of age ) visiting with daughter Diane Auxillou on their home island village of Caye Caulker, inside the Great Barrier Reef off Belize, Central America. The wife Mrs. Silvia Auxillou is on the left, Grandpa Ray Auxillou in the middle and his daughter Diane Auxillou on the right.

BELIZE UDP DEBT ECONOMICS POLICY DURING RECESSION

*** Pensive Finance Minister, Dean Barrow. Is it LADY LUCK? Or shrewd foresight and planning?


THE BELIZE DEBT ECONOMICS POLICY IS SO FAR WORKING! (2009)
By Ray Auxillou ( September 2009 )

So far the performance of the UDP Government DEBT ECONOMICS policy seems to be working? Here in Western Belize, the middle class continue to do well. Construction is still ongoing at a steady pace. There is the occasional lull, but often you have a back order of cement blocks running on a waiting list of 50 customers for two weeks. New block makers are starting up. Hardware stores continue to replace stock on a weekly, or twice a week basis.
Nice cars are being driven, despite vehicle fuel prices rising. The middle class seem to be broad based. Western Belize is blessed with a mixed economy. Agriculture, tourism, and such. The Tourism sector has suffered this past season and is expected to really hurt marginal tour operators and hotels in the next three months during our dead season. I would not be surprised to see many of them close up shop. I had one favorite tour operator the other day asking me for alternative business ideas. Most tourist hotels and resorts are for sale. Many are not seriously for sale, only if you pay their price. Otherwise the owners are quite content to sit out the hard times. They have no intention of selling out cheap, they like the life style. Next tourist season is expected to be the SAME, or very slightly better, but not enough to change the dynamics much. Many tourist businesses will not be able to carry the cost of losing another season. We don’t expect to see much improvement until 2012 and 2013.
It is on the national scene that any stress is occurring. Mostly in the government bureaucracies. The system of political patronage party allocated jobs is giving us BAD GOVERNMENT. Overall in a general sense, the political party practice of nepotism and party hack hiring, is a ruinous system for the nation using patronage party politics, versus the needs of the nation, to hire only civil servants who are the brightest and smartest. It is a common complaint among citizens that in many government offices, only one or two people are doing the work, while four others are chatting, socializing, or on the government phone with their friends all day. My brother-in-law has had to go through the police interview routine twice in the past year and he just got told this week, they have lost his file again. Another third round of police interviews again, I guess? This makes his PERMANENT RESIDENCY process stretch into years. With PM BARROW retiring at the end of this term, I have HOPES that he will professionalize the Belize Civil Service through a Human Resources Department and a variety of Civil Service Exams, done anonymously and with the highest test candidate offered the job. This would go a long way to bringing up the professional level of how we are governed and our bureaucracies perform. The current system is terrible as a working model. It only serves the interests of the political gang or party being elected, as a vote catcher. For the nation it is a ruinous method of doing things efficiently with professionalism. Belize needs the best people we can find and hire. Not the leavings of party patronage, low quality people.
Mostly, the effects of the WORLD DEPRESSION seem to be felt in government tax revenues, which are dropping. If the numbers being reported in the AMANDALA newspaper are anywhere near accurate, then the government bureaucracy set up and expanded during the PUP boom years are going to contract fiercely soon. Government tax revenues seem to be about back to what they were around 14 years ago.
That said, subjectively, the feel in Western Belize outside of the tourism sector, is that things are bright and the local economy strong. A lot of that is supported by the FOREIGN LOAN borrowing for specific projects, along with a lot of GRANTS. So money is circulating.
PM Barrow who is also the Finance Minister seems to be in luck. At least as far as the West here. He might argue with that and we don’t know if it is good foresight on his part, or blind luck? Still, give credit where it is due! For me to acknowledge that opinion, as an avowed opponent against borrowing, means I’m impressed at how the Belize Recession and revenue retraction is working in the economic private sector, by slowly feeding in loan development infra-structure projects. BARROW seems to be borrowing and feeding slowly into the system, FOREIGN LOAN financed projects on a small but steady slow basis. If he can keep this up through the remaining three years of his term, the whole nation of Belize may come out of this WORLD DEPRESSION with nothing more than a shrinkage in government workers in the bureaucracies, and the elimination of a lot of government jobs, that were created in BOOM times and are no longer self sustainable. We can expect an exodus of the salaried government worker types in the port town, to migrate abroad to Europe, Canada and the USA for greener pastures in their desires. This should be balanced with an inflow of immigrants seeking the climate and business entrepreneurial atmosphere of a well managed economy in a depression, if the UDP can achieve it? The government dependence on tourist tax revenues seems to have been replaced by oil tax revenues, or dividends? Eventually tourism will come back in three to six years from now and will be a useful addition to our economy again. Though of less importance as in times past, as we diversify our economy. I think the Agriculture Department are on the right track teaching world trade, exporting, entrepreneurial skills to a new generation of youngsters. That is the future for Belize, in my opinion. The necessary shrinkage in government size and increased efficient performance will be the crux of the matter over the remainder of the UDP term. Can BARROW slowly feed the work paid for, by LOANS and GRANTS into the system, slowly enough, not to let our economy slide downhill? The art is to keep the private sector vibrant and producing for good national health. The verdict is out on that and it is a little early to judge. As far as this year, it can be said his DEBT ECONOMICS policy is working. The national government is being forced to shrink though. That seems unavoidable, as that is a direct function of tax revenues and those are falling, due to external conditions, not from local conditions. We don’t seem to be as bad off as the USA though, or England? The next two years are going to be the toughest for this UDP Administration. 2010 and 2011.
There are at least 15 States in the USA reporting 25% unemployment since the last 1930’s DEPRESSION. An unheard of situation. Doubtful if anybody is still alive remembering that DEPRESSION? In the U.K. they are going to cut the military defense budget by 2/3 rds. CHINA is reviewing their overseas investment policies for all that cash they have in their foreign reserves. Wonder if there isn’t some mechanism we can attract Chinese Foreign Reserves for safety here in Belize? Our financial experts need to ponder those challenges and opportunities. Risks and rewards and how to set it up, so it will work. I can smell the opportunity here, but it will take a more experienced mixed task force of professionals, to explore how to diddle with international currencies and end up making money off it in Belize, as a haven for trillions of Chinese foreign reserves. Lichenstein, Luxemburg, Switzerland and other small places seem to be able to do it, why not Belize? We would need some invited speakers to present papers at a forum on the HOW? Some BOND TRADERS, CURRENCY TRADERS and BANKERS, perhaps Goldman Sachs people. Give them a free holiday here in Belize, in return for presenting suggestion papers at a private financial forum, on how we as a country can go about this opportunity?
If we don’t get a hurricane strike in the next month and a half, we can count that as BARROW LUCK also, and it will mean an extra $150 million in disaster work, that can be more effectively used.

Cayo District Junior Miss Universe is Shanty Zetina, 10 years old.

SHANTY ZETINA, only 10 years old, won the Junior Miss Universe Contest held in Belize City the port town down on the coast of Belize. She is MISS CAYO in the Junior contest and the pageant was to raise funds for school feeding programs for poor children.

Belize middle class couple cry, because they didn't plan properly?

** job loss protesters Hiriam and Charles Good of Belize City




THE SAGA OF HIRIAM AND CHARLES GOOD

Belize City Port Town folks are strange people! A long drawn out saga, because Hiriam Good lost her job as a School Warden, due to political patronage job allocations is a running serial, in port town newspapers. The thing that is strange about it, in a land such as Belize, is that this middle class couple even think they are entitled to salaried government jobs and that the Prime Minister has an obligation to them to give them a salaried job. One wonders what happened to personal responsibility?

Anyone with a salaried job, knows that the job is temporary? Dependent on variable factors. While you have a salaried job, it behooves you to plan and provide for what happens after the salaried job stops. We have been inundated with the cry that they have four children in paid high school. Well tough tiddy! I have thousands of neighbors in Western Belize that cannot even put their children in High School, because they do not have the money. In fact, there are hundreds around this immediate area of Western Belize that will not finish PRIMARY SCHOOL, because they do not have enough money. Many of them do not have shoes!

Charles Good has his PENSION and his SOCIAL SECURITY and while his younger wife Hiriam does not, they are middle class, with or without a government salaried job. They should come out of the PORT TOWN and see how real people in the nation of Belize have to live. Visit anywhere in the rural districts of Belize .

Nobody owes the GOOD family a salaried job in the government. They have to deal with the hard knocks of life just like any other family here in rural districts. People on a salary with the government, or in the private sector, should be preparing and planning for how they will live when they lose that job. That is THEIR RESPONSIBILITY. Not that of a PRIME MINISTER. We the nation do not OWE the GOOD FAMILY a salaried job. They can always come out into the rural areas and grow their own food. This is a tropical country and you can grow food year round.

Don Quixote in Belize needs a new lance and mule!

*** Every era has it's heros. In Belize City the port of Belize, it is Jules Vasquez here that is the hero of this era in Belizean history.
** Don Quixote tilting at windmills and helping the poor.
*** The famous story of Don Quixote tilting at windmills.


JULES VASQUES the ONLY MEDIA REPORTER IN BELIZE ASKING THE HARD QUESTIONS ON OUR GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT MODEL

By Ray Auxillou ( September 2009 )

Belize only has one media reporter asking the hard questions of our politicians and concerned about where our economy and nation is going. In a democracy it is the role of the investigative media to keep the politicians as honest as possible. It is also the only counter balance against autocracy and dictatorship.

In Belize , we only have one reporter over the previous administration and this current political administration, that is asking the hard questions. You could call Jules Vasquez a NATIONAL TREASURE.

In the eighteen years of self government under the British Colonial authorities, George Price rose as the leader of then British Honduras . The United Nations wanted to kick all ex-colonies out of the fold and into independence. It was the end of the military EUROPEAN IMPERIALIST ERA. George Price implemented the role of autocrat/dictator on the style of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana of that time. POLITICAL PATRONAGE was the methodology chosen. George Price was ruthless in suppressing, penalizing, destroying, his perceived enemies and often the brutal party controlled police and trappings of government departments, forced perceived opponents into exile. After the 1982 INDEPENDENCE VOTE in the United Nations, unanimous almost, except for the one exception of Guatemala , this small country of Belize , with a smaller population, dominated by a black port town and black civil service went into, two party political rule. It is now 2009 and we now have as a small country, named BELIZE with forty five years of experience of self rule, in a two party system. We have also become secular and ethnically diversified, a true melting pot.

How is it working? It is not working well! The best that could be said is that; it is working mediocre. The worst that can be said, is that it is hardly democratic, the government is bankrupt, and governed by a two party system, that are no more than organized banditry. They, each major party enter the political race in a system of gang membership to plunder and loot the government resources, a system taught to us by George Price the founder of our independent nation of Belize . ALL political aspirants enter for SELF ENRICHMENT. ( Modern day piracy. ) About 25% of those candidates are outright crooks, or criminals with no remorse, or pity on anyone who get in their way into making money off the government workings. From bribes, to embezzlement, to government contracts ( false and real ), to nepotism, to political patronage government jobs ( several thousands ) introduced by George Price ( as taught by Huey Long of Louisiana ) the government of Belize , is primarily run to enrich the winning political party members, at the expense of the masses tax revenues. Some sociological, political and anthropological studies and books were written and published in the local press around 1993 ( eleven years after Independence ) covering the shortcomings of the way our political government system worked until then. Only the odd democratic change has been adopted in the sixteen years since then,, when it didn’t interfere with the depredations of political area representatives, money making opportunities, while in their term in office. These democratic developments were in the privatization field and de-centralization area.

The two party looting, plundering model of governing continues, forty five years later, embedded into the two party political system.

This leads us to a fast approaching era of ECONOMIC CRISIS, exacerbated by a WORLD RECESSION/DEPRESSION. We have no idea of our total BELIZE NATIONAL DEBT? The latest figure bandied about is $3 billion for total debt. The GDP number of $1.2 BILLION also bandied about, but is old and based on the BOOM, borrowing debt economics years of the previous administration. Since then, the WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS has shrunk our GDP, 31% to around $800 MILLION in our guess estimate. Have no idea of our TOTAL NATIONAL DEBT?

We expect Jules Vasquez the nation’s only defender of democracy in the media, to hold the Prime Minister, Finance Minister’s feet to the fire with some hard questions, on where our economy is, and where it is going? If you use the NEW estimated numbers our National Debt to GDP ratio in these shrinking economic times, our ratio is 63% of GDP. If you use the old numbers of GDP and DEBT, our Debt to GDP ratio is around 250%. A lot depends on those numbers for future policy during this UDP administration. This policy of FINANCIAL SECRECY by the bandit political party gang, running our nation has to stop.

JULES VASQUEZ ( local media investigative star ) is our DON QUIXOTE, our knight in shining armor, destined to do battle with the forces of evil in our government. He needs to take our leader of this gang ruling the nation to task and put the Finance Minister’s feet to the fire and get us some answers, if they have any at all? Which is a questionable assumption? Observers and critics only see governing, by crisis knee jerk reactions. Not true longer range planning. If there is mid term and longer term planning it seems to be coming from Rene Montero ( agriculture ) and Patrick Faber ( education ). They do have support in the involvement of the CABINET of their party, so in that sense perhaps we could say there is a political party sense of SOME longer range planning?

We the public know that hard times are coming over the remainder of the UDP term. We should be sharing the policy discussions on how to handle the problems we face as a citizenry. Indeed, these hard times may have arrived already, and if not, will arrive by the end of next month. We expect a shortage of foreign exchange. This is alleviated somewhat by all the FOREIGN LOANS coming into the government.

The coming economic crisis is centered on our ability to maintain financially the size of our government. The salaried non-producers. The government expanded during the BOOM times of the previous PUP Debt Economics and now it must shrink. How many low quality, political patronage, free loaders, can we support from diminishing tax revenues? Many of our decentralized departments and regulatory agencies are no long self sustainable. This situation is going to get worse for the next three years. This is going to mean a severe contraction in certain types of government jobs. Human nature will pit, a frightened government civil service bureaucracy against the private sector business community in an economic civil war. The war is over personal survival. The civil service bureaucrats, mostly from the port of Belize City , are expected to go into an orgy of new taxes, tax increases, increased fines and permit and license fees to preserve their salaried government jobs. They are fighting for personal survival in the government salaried mode. The private sector in rural districts, will fight to keep taxation and predations reasonable, to enable the private sector to survive also, and stop any further contraction of the business economy, that can only make a projected difficult economic situation even worse. The politicians in our gang of ruling thieves ( a common public opinion ) will decide, who or what wins over the next three years. They are supposed to manage the situation for the good of the whole nation and economy. Their own self enrichment schemes, perks, gratuities, pensions, salaries, travel allowances, per diems are more or less guaranteed, no matter how bad things get for the civil service, or the private business sector producers and service industries.

There are some changes we can make to our governing model. Certainly one is a HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT and anonymous civil service exams explained in Belizean sociological recommendations and studies of 16 years ago and published. Much of which was not done. This to get rid of the ruinous POLITICAL PARTY PATRONAGE, government job system, which is losing us our skilled civil service administrators and replacing them with worthless relatives and party hacks, who are unable to give us affordable, efficient work performance. If your civil service is run by unskilled people, chosen by political party patronage, then you get what you expect. It may serve the political party gang in power, but destroys both our economy and our nation. Neither the police, lands, or immigration departments are doing well.

We look for DON QUIXOTE ( Jules Vasquez –grin!- ) to ride to the rescue and keep our government honest, open and transparent! Light the fire Jules. We in the rural districts are cheering you on! “Viva Belice!”