Senator Says Government is Yet to Talk About Adjustments

Mark Lizarraga

The issue of foreign exchange was also highlighted by Central Bank Governor Glenford Ysaguirre. He warned that domestic adjustments are needed to further protect the exchange peg rate.  Lizarraga says that so far government has made no mention of the prescribed adjustments.

Senator Mark Lizarraga, Business Community

“But it makes some very bold and direct statements, like this one, it says, “without domestic adjustments and increased inflows it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible for the bank to protect the exchange peg rate of Belize two dollars to one U.S.  What does this mean?  It means that we need to see domestic adjustments, either the government is going to spend less or it’s going to raise taxes, something that you know the business community is extremely concerned about because at present we believe that we are already overburdened and some thirty percent almost, fast approaching thirty percent of our GDP is consumed by this huge government that we have with this appetite.  So we have to make those adjustments domestically or we have to decrease imports and increase exports.  Now I haven’t heard anything from the government as to what these domestic adjustments and increase flows will be, where they will come from.  There is absolute silence on that and it is something that we have been needing to address for a very long time and the business community has been saying we need to address for a very long time.  Perhaps now it will get the respect and attention it deserves.  And it goes on to say that at least we need to conserve and closely manage what foreign exchange we have.  This again is concerning for the business community because we have queues at the banks on many occasions when we go to request foreign exchange.”