And, speaking of reform - what about constitutional reform?
Well, Cabinet has decided that Government will make a wholistic review of the constitution and not take a piecemeal approach.
While he didn't say they would set up a constitutional assembly - like what the social partners have demanded - the PM says government is way ahead - they're establishing an office of governance reform led by a Reform Czar.
Sounds fancy - and yesterday the PM told us it's part of what government has adopted as a reform position:
Hon. John Briceno - Prime Minister
"Well, the social partners are late in suggesting that, we have said from the start, and if the social partners look at Plan Belize, you'll see that what we have said that we are going to set up a constitutional reform position, in Cabinet yesterday we made 4 very important decisions. We agreed that the issue of amending the constitution should not be piecemeal, and we know that it is something that should be done holistically with the involvement of all, political parties, the government, and the opposition of course, and also the social partners, the private sector, the public sector, the churches, everyone. We're going to establish an office of governance reform, and it will be under the ministry of constitutional and political reform with the responsibility of the oversight and implementation of governance reform agenda, we have that agenda so we have to ensure that there's a small team everyday constantly seeing that we're going to be implementing what we promised, and we want to implement a government tzar who is going to head this office and we're going to asking monthly reports from this group to be reported to cabinet. Secondly, we said that we were going to establish an anti-corruption unit so we're looking at calling it the independent commission against corruption and whose membership as we said on Plan Belize that it is going to be independent and will not include the political parties and it should have representation from civil society, the business sector, the social partners including the churches. Three, we want to identify a legal consultant to come to Belize and to take a comprehensive look at the laws. One of the biggest criticisms that we've had is that ministers have this unbridled powers that they can do anything and it would be accept to be legal so we said that we want to find a way to limit those discretionary powers so we will identify a legal consultant to come and undertake a comprehensive review at the laws of Belize with the directive to limit and reduce the legal discretionary powers and authority held and exercised by ministers of government. And four, we want to appoint a constitutional reform commission. I know people are tired of hearing commissions, but this is going to be a commission that is going to be targeted, a constitutional reform commission to undertake a comprehensive review of the constitution. We agree that you just can't one day say oh we need to take an amendment of the constitution because of factor A and you're working on that you realise oh we have another issue that we have to address, that's not the way you work in amending the constitution, you need to take a comprehensive look, a comprehensive review."
After all that, the PM did not state clearly whether government will stand down on or proceed with the 10th and 11th amendments which are presently before the house.
