Prime Minister Dean Barrow. *Photo credit: www.facebook.com

BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC – With the Belize City Council in the throes of a cash crisis, Prime Minister Dean Barrow is suggesting that councillors take a pay cut.

“I’m certainly looking at it,” the Prime Minister said when asked about cutting the stipends paid to those serving on the body in light of the financial difficulties that has prevented the council from being able to pay for the city’s garbage collection.

Barrow said the councillors needed to offer some “good faith gesture” to the public, adding “they are not going to get out of the financial hole they are in unless they ask for help on the part of the public.

“I believe there is no way the council will be able to get out of its additional financial hole except by trying to expand the revenue base. In blunt straightforward terms, that will at some stage mean asking people to pay a little more,” he said, suggesting that a nominal charge for the collection of household garbage could be part of a solution.

“But you can’t do that unless you show the public that you, as City Councillors, are prepared to make sacrifices too. That’s all I’m saying,” he told reporters.

“…there is no way the City Council dare go to the public to talk about bearing additional strain if the councillors will not ser the tone by themselves agreeing to make sacrifices by way of some kind of decrease in their stipends,” the Prime Minister added.

Deputy Mayor Dion Leslie said Prime Minister Barrow told him that a cut would show that the council is serious about changing and getting work done to improve its finances.

The Belize City Council will meet next Monday when a proposal to cut the pay packets will be tabled.