As the proposed Belize Revenue Authority Bill heads toward senate review, the nation’s largest public sector labor organization has launched a fierce campaign to block the legislation in its current form, warning of unchecked executive power and irreversible risks to public sector workers’ retirement security.
Dean Flowers, president of the Public Service Union (PSU), has issued a clear call to upper house legislators: reject the rushed approval of the bill until critical unanswered questions around transparency, accountability, and excessive ministerial authority are formally addressed. According to Flowers, the draft legislation concentrates unprecedented discretionary power in the hands of the finance minister and the chief executive officer of the proposed new authority, creating gaps that undermine democratic oversight of the nation’s tax and revenue systems.
Flowers also alleged that government leaders are already considering procedural maneuvers to bypass the senate if the bill faces defeat. Under Belize’s Constitution, money bills can be sent for governor general assent after a 30-day waiting period if the senate fails to approve them, a pathway Flowers described as an unconstitutional “usurpation” of the upper house’s legislative role. While the government has previously used this procedure for other controversial pieces of legislation, Flowers warned that moving forward with it here would erode trust in Belize’s democratic institutions.
The pushback from the PSU comes as the Ministry of Finance frames the bill as a much-needed modernization reform, arguing that establishing a standalone revenue authority will streamline outdated tax administration processes and boost national revenue collection. But the union has rejected the government’s framing, pointing out that core governance commitments have not been codified in the legislation. The union’s most immediate concern, however, centers on the impact of the reform on hundreds of current Belize Tax Service Department employees.
Flowers has issued a direct warning to tax department workers against rushing to accept positions with the new authority, noting that the reform will formally abolish their existing civil service roles. According to PSU analysis, only 153 new roles will be created under the restructuring, leaving roughly 80 current employees without guaranteed positions. Flowers also alleged that some workers have already been privately offered guaranteed jobs ahead of the official application process, pointing to a lack of fairness and transparency in the planned hiring process.
Most critically, Flowers emphasized that the government has failed to provide clear, formal guarantees for affected workers’ pensions and retirement benefits. While the Pensions Act entitles workers whose positions are abolished to full retirement benefits, Flowers said the government has not publicly committed to honoring these obligations, leaving hundreds of workers facing uncertain financial futures. If the bill passes, Flowers noted, taxpayers will ultimately be responsible for covering lifetime pension payouts for workers put out of a job by the restructuring, a cost the government has not included in its public projections for the reform.
Beyond warning workers, the PSU has issued a formal call to both the Senate and the National Trade Union Congress of Belize to move beyond rhetorical positions and actively mobilize against the bill in its current form, urging cross-sector labor and legislative opposition to block approval until sweeping amendments are made to address the union’s core concerns.