Prime Minister addresses Political Reform Committee meeting

The Political Reform Committee met for the first time this afternoon. The Commission, which was appointed in December by Prime Minister Said Musa, will review Belize’s system of governance and make recommendations for its improvement. The Prime Minister, who addressed the members this afternoon at the WASA conference room, told the committee they have a year in which to carry out this task, and that they should regard no area of governance as a “sacred cow” but make recommendations as they see fit. The Prime Minister told News Five Government will move swiftly to put the committee’s proposals to work and that he expects to see some substantial changes.

Said Musa, Prime Minister

“I’m hoping that we can do this thing in slices, that if they come with an interim report on a particular issue and it’s worthy of proceeding with, yes, we will take it straight to Cabinet and move with it right away. Rather than wait for the comprehensive report, we can do the form, we can do the form piecemeal until we reach the objective.”

Q: “What will be the next step after they make the recommendations, lets say the overall recommendations?”

Said Musa

“It will go to Cabinet for its consideration. But at the end of the year, then clearly they would have, I’m hoping they would have, by the end of this year they would have been carrying out consultations as well, with the public so that we have a clear position and a national consensus on the type of reform that people really want.”

Q: “So could people conceivably see, next year sometime see some really sweeping changes, or do you think it will be some fiddling here and there?”

Said Musa

“Well, I don’t want to prejudge the work of the commission, but I do believe there will be several areas of serious political reform coming about, yes.”