The Musa administration and the PUP have challenged the resigning members of the Governance Improvement Commission to produce a report to show some accounting for the time and money spent since they were appointed in June of 2004. Well today, those 12 resigned members did just that.
The body of that report, 8 pages detailing the work plan was distributed to the media this evening. It shows the extent of meetings, consultations, reports and letters, but most critically it shows is that on June 21st of this year the Commission met with the Prime Minister to agree that legislation would be prepared to give the Governance Improvement Commission some legal footing.
Secondly, the Commission would be authorized to access information needed to assess cases of alleged corruption. The Prime Minister also agreed to put the portfolio for Governance Improvement under his office. But in July when the prime minister shuffled the Cabinet and dissolved the Ministry of Public Service, one of the primary vehicles for the commission to work through. Commission members wrote to the Prime Minister expressing their disappointment. From there, the relationship disintegrated as greater inconsistencies between the words and deeds of the Prime Minister's office and Cabinet became apparent. With that there was a last exchange of letters in late October and the resignation on November 12th.
