Increase in Social Security Contributions Delayed Until April

John Briceño

Cabinet has decided to defer the planned one percent Social Security Board payment increase until the beginning of the fiscal year, 2022.  The increase was scheduled to take effect in January of 2022.  PM Briceño explained today that while the increase is necessary, Belizeans now have more time to prepare.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Cabinet after some further discussions we felt that we want to put it aligned with the fiscal year, the financial year, which starts in April. We know that this decision was done way before we got into government in 2019 I think. It was done after extensive consultations with the private sector, with Labor, with the employees, with everybody. The truth of the matter the Social Security funds were drying out. We are reaching a point called the equilibrium which simply means that every dollar you collect, you are paying out a dollar. And, we have to make sure that we could have enough in reserves so that when you retire you will be able to get something. And, the only way you can do that is by increasing the contributions. So, it was agreed it would have gone up, I think by two and a half percent in phases. The last phase should have been in 2020, but when we got into government we realized that the country was going through a severe economic crisis. We felt that it would have been very difficult to impose that on people. So, we felt we are going to hold that back for a year. Again, we had another discussion with Social Security, the C.E.O. and the Chairperson. They came to Cabinet and made a presentation as to why it is necessary. So, it is then we decided we would proceed with the one percent. We then decided to take one step further to have the, to move it down to April at the start of the fiscal year.”