Posted: Wednesday, May 16, 2018. 8:15 am CST.

The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News.

By Charles Leslie Jr:THE PROBLEM

Cost of Living and the Cost of Doing Business in Belize continues to go up, up and away.

Spending power has been significantly reduced. The minimum wage has not been raised in over 10 years.

Social safety nets do not actually empower and take people out of poverty.

The negative economic externalities are becoming unbearable. No one is safe.

But why?

THE SOURCE

I believe that George Myvette has succinctly answered this question: “NO SURPRISES HERE! Failure to grow the economy + 100% Debt: GDP Ratio + Debilitating litigation obligation in collusion with mrCASHCRAFT + Bilking National Treasury by Politicos + Revenue leakage from GOB Coffers due to Political Corruption!”

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Acknowledge: this system is not working. Economic and social policies are not working. Don’t pay attention to rhetorical flourishes and framed-arguments, simply focus on results.

Question yourself:

• What are the results of the socio-economic policies?
• Is this what I want for my country?
• Is this what I want for my fellow Belizean?
• Is this what I want for my children?
• What kind of country am I leaving my children?
• What kind of children am I leaving my country?

If you want to leave a better country for your children and strong, sagacious, moral, ethical and principled children for your country…

…continue reading…

Civil Disobedience (not to be confused with Civil Unrest):

Let us come up with and share ideas on how we can protest in a civil, impactful and sustained way.

Getting people on the streets is powerful, however, protests are designed to bring #awareness. It is unsustainable, and short-term. We must also come up with long-term, sustained methods to compound the effect.

Currently, Belizeans indirectly protest the high cost of living and doing business by going over the border and spending an average of $200 million per year in Guatemala and Mexico…

…that is One Billion dollars every 5 years that leaks out of our economy.

This is what we need to do: come up with ideas on how people can protest in their immediate community.

Legitimize The Issue:

When BTIA Placencia Chapter did not want cruise tourism in Placencia village, they started by legitimizing their position, such as by running full-page ads in the newspapers, making presentations on the news media outlets, and calling for public consultation.

They educated people on the negative impacts of cruise tourism.

We can do the same: Example, it is very important that we educate ourselves and our fellow Belizean on the importance of cheap fuel, which is necessary to grow a nation’s economy.

If you want to read detailed reasons on the importance of cheap fuel, go to Belize Breaking News and search “Richard Harrison” and read his many, detailed and analytic articles.

A campaign against the high cost of living and doing business does not need to be centrally organized, however, more community organized…no one person needs to be in charge.

Some ideas on what you can do, specifically:

• Form discussion groups and start having meetings, listing how the high cost of living is affecting you and your community, especially young people.
• Create a Facebook Page and Group for your community and call it something like “Belmopan Had Enough of High Cost of Living”, “Belize City Had Enough of High Cost of Living” “Placencia Had Enough of High Cost of Living” etc.
• Invite people to share their stories on how the high cost of living affects them every day.
• Create a petition and circulate it in your community (paper and digital).
• Draft a “Resolution” that will include:
  • The list of how high cost of living is affecting people in your community.
  • Copies of the signed Petitions.
  • Then create “Resolutions” i.e. things you would like to see changed, such as gas prices being lowered, electricity, butane, internet, cable etc. being lowered.
  • Send a copy of this document to your local Council, DAVCO, NAVCO, all Government Ministries, Prime Minister’s Office, NGOs, Unions, media houses…

These are just some of my ideas. I am confident that there are many brilliant ideas floating around.

In conclusion, we need to move away from the obsolete: this system and the people that hold on to it.

We need to stop fighting to fix a house that has over 50 years of rot and decay. We need to simply leave it to rot to the ground and move on to building something brand new, a system of government that:

• Empowers all Belizean.
• Creates equity.
• Progress equality.
• Embraces meritocracy.
• Applies pragmatism.
• Enables transparency, thus trust.
• And last but not least: holds elected officials responsible and accountable.

“The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.” Unknown

#LowerFuelPricesNow

#RaiseMinimumWage

#NoToICJ

#RememberConorquie

#EvokeSoberanis

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