| San Pedro Daily |  |
Wednesday, October 21,
2009 Belize's Daily- 7 Days a Week |
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ISLAND
SUPERMARKET "Best Prices - Best Quality - Best Service" Phone: 501-226-2972 or 501-226-2973 FREE DELIVERY IN TOWN |
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Eight percent inflation proves cost
of living is going way up
Cost of living is up. But just in case you
weren’t sure about the
inflation figures, a release from the Statistical Institute of Belize
confirms an overall increase in price of goods and services. The
Institute reports that the overall price level rose by point eight
percent between May and August of this year. The rate of inflation
reflects the increase in crude oil and butane prices and the continued
upwards scale over the past months.
This has had a trickling effect on almost every other product and service. Gasoline and diesel prices were the highest at nine point two and twenty one point three percent respectively. The index also shows that all groups, except for the food and beverage groups recorded increases over the last quarter of this year. But the prices of fuel and butane were not the only ones to skyrocket, as the prices of onion, beans and tomatoes were also up. CH5 High Interest
Rates are Crushing the Working Class
If you’ve taken even a casual skim through
the newspapers in
the last few years, you’ll know that Belize has gone through its own
version of what the Americans call the sub-prime housing crisis. Every
month dozens of homes go up on auction as homeowners have been crushed
by high interest rates and abandoned by an unresponsive and inflexible
banking system. But what’s behind it? And can anything be done to bring
down those rates to make it so that homeowners don’t become the
homeless? I’ve been looking for answers for the past few weeks and I
found that the solutions seem simple but there are no easy answers.
Betty Perez, Homeowner “Honestly Jackie what I do on a daily basis is I am before God. I don’t pray daily, I pray all day and in praying all day it helps me to go through for that day and when I reach the next day I try to face it the best I could because if I don’t do that, I think I will be a suicide victim also.” 47 year old Betty Perez is not alone. Thousands of Belizean families, mostly from the working class, are struggling to meet the demands on their mortgage payments and hold on to their homes. A problem created due to the failure of the banking sector to provide loans at affordable interest rates.” 
Betty Perez,
“To keep the payments going sometimes we had to don’t pay one bill to pay a next bill and when you miss the payment from the bank, everyday the interest goes up and even when you go and talk them, you try to explain to them what you’re going through. Sometimes they say I will give you a grace period or whatever but the interest still goes up. That does not help because when you meet the payment now, you still have that interest to pay plus your mortgage and then so that interest always goes up and you have your mortgage to pay and the interest is going up and you can’t meet the two and sometimes the bank calls you in and they will tell you or they would write you a letter and say we’ll be taking back your house. If you say you’ll give them a little bit more then it means you will have a little less for food, a little less for clothing, a little less for education.” Equally disturbing is that Belizean banks have the highest interest rates throughout the region despite the fact that the banks have excess liquidity. According to Glenford Ysaguirre, the Governor of the Central Bank of Belize, with such access to liquidity he would expect a decline in the interest rates and greater competitiveness between these institutions. Glenford Ysaguirre, Governor, Central Bank of Belize “I think in all the other territories, the countries out there in the region, CARICOM countries, mortgage rates are lower than those in Belize. They are at 9%, 8.5%, 10% but much lower than ours here in Belize. So one would anticipate that in a market like that, with such excess liquidity, you would have seen a decline in interest rates. There has been a slight reduction but not to the magnitude that I would have expected and this is what I mentioned earlier that there is a certain stickiness of the interest rates. It goes up quickly but it would not come down when conditions dictate that it should and that is we need to look at what is the underlying cause and I suspect that some of the underlying cause is because of the smallness of the market, you don’t have true competition so banks are not going after each other as aggressively as one would expect.” To get an idea of how bad it has had an effect on homeowners, just look through the newspapers weekly and see the high number of properties being auctioned and mortgaged. Some homeowners like Betty Perez have been forced to sell their household items just to make a payment to the bank. Betty Perez, “I got rid of my refridge, I got rid of my stove, I got rid of two of my beds, I got rid of my sofa set and almost everything in my house is what my kids they bought and said mom you could use it. So it is kind of hard but you have to work and you have to try and meet the payment or you might by on the street.” According to the Governor of the Central of Belize they do meet with bankers on a monthly basis to discuss what is happening and how best to address the problem. 
Glenford Ysaguirre,
“To keep tabs on what is happening in the economy, to discuss what is happening in the system to see what needs to be changed. Banks tell us what they are experiencing, we monitor the level of bad debt because it is an indicator of what is happening in the economy and if you look at the reports being produced by the Central Bank and the public needs to be aware of this and that’s why we publish information on the bank, so that they can see what is happening with the banks and what is going on with their competitors. At some point we will come out of the economic recession. The question is how long it will be sustained and those factors that control or influence that are out of our control and basically determined by the developed economies and the rest of the world. We need to do what we can on the ground here to see if we can keep our economy afloat and see what opportunities are there for us so that we take advantage of these situations. But like I mentioned to you there is always a lag with what happens out there and when it happens here in Belize, when it affects us in Belize. So our recovery will be a bit slower than theirs or at least lag it by I think 12 to 16 months.” One suggestion is to lower the ceiling on the rates of
deposits. An idea supported by Stephen Duncan the General Manager of
Alliance Bank but yet to put into effect. LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
MEXICO DAYLIGHT
SAVING TIME
FINISHED ON 25 OCTOBER · In Mexico, clocks go backward one hour on Sunday 25 October. · Mexico and Belize will have again the same local time. *Ambergris Caye
Elementary School* (A.C.E.S.) welcomes the San Pedro Community to
our
Halloween Bazaar Fundraiser. It’s on Saturday, 24 October from 6pm to
10pm on our campus
located just behind Paz Villas. There are great prizes for the best
costume for a male and female in
the following categories: Adult, child - scariest, child - most
original,
and baby.
We have an amazing raffle, $5 per chance. 1st prize – Smart cell phone, 2nd prize – Smart cell phone, 3rd prize - 24 hr golf cart rental from Captain G’s, 4th prize – Wood carving from Graniels, 5th prize - $50 gift certificate from Remax. We will have a Spooky House, a Fun House, Fish pond, and Tombola for the children and the young at heart. For the adults, there will be a Texas Hold’em tournament. Food and a variety of wonderful pastries will be available for sale. Admission: Children $2 and Adults $3. Come and join us for a night of family fun and start off the Halloween Season with a Bang!
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 www.grandcaribe.com debbiewade@gmail.com
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© SAN PEDRO DAILY, PO Box 45, San Pedro Town, Belize. Inquiries to editor@sanpedrodaily.com |
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