And in other news, 11 weeks ago, during his last appearance as a guest on Channel 7's Uncut show, NTUCB president, Luke Martinez shared his concern that essential accountability posts such as the Auditor General, the Labour Commissioner, and the Ombudsman, remain vacant at this time.
He also pointed out that the Briceno Government had not appointed an integrity Commission at that time. On May 20th, however, the Senate confirmed the appointment of Chairperson Andrea Mcsweaney McKoy and her fellow Commission members: Katherine Meighan, Zoe Roberson Zetina, Ricardo Mogul, George Swift, Payal Ghanwani, and Jaraad Ysaguirre.
That's one accountability post that has been addressed, but according to the NTUCB President, there are three more that should not be allowed to languish for an extended time. Here's how he made that point at yesterday's celebration of NTUCB's anniversary:
Luis Luke Martinez - President, NTUCB
"There has been no Labor commissioner for over, I think, three months. We said it shouldn't be one day. One day shouldn't pass without us having a Labor Commissioner. Yes, we understand that the government has published vacancies for the course. But three months, that is unacceptable. So, we call upon the Government of Belize to ensure to have that very important force field. We have been raising this issue quite a number of times with the Minister of Labor at the Labor Advisory Board. We've even quoted the Labor up to let him understand the importance of the Labor Commissioner. So the Labor Commissioner's role does not only look after the welfare of the workers. They also look at the welfare of the employer. That ministry serves both interests. It can't be that we will continue in this way. I keep on saying that that ministry has to find a way to see how they could prioritize the labor aspect of their portfolio. We want them to be more vigilant when it comes to the Labor aspect of their portfolio. We also want to make a highlight, but since March there has not been any tripartite body meeting. So we again implore upon the Government of leads, through the Ministry of Labor, to have that arm up and running. When we brought it to their attention, eventually they named a chair for a tripartite body. But guess what? [It's] useless to name a chair of the chair isn't calling it meetings, useless. We continue to highlight the importance that there is no ombudsman and we all know that the Ombudsman is the poor man's attorney right here in most of their jurisdictions and constituencies."
