Marvin Mora Explains Process for Removing Senator Davis
Marvin Mora
While the N.T.U.C.B. is made up of ten unions, the Civil Society Steering Committee is made up of two organizations: WIN Belize and APAMO. Mora explains that the process for removing the senator is not defined but that there is established precedent where the N.T.U.C.B.’s recommendations are accepted by the C.S.S.C.
Marvin Mora, General Secretary, BEWU
“Ray Davis is not a member of the delegation that forms the congress and I am not even sure if he is a member of the C.W.U. He is an employee, he was employed by the Public Service Union to be a liaison officer which deals with grievances and situations such as that between the employer and the employee. So what I can tell you is that because of that fact there is nothing that the congress can so if we have already expressed to him our dissatisfaction in terms of his representation as a senator for the congress. And all that we have to do is complete the process where he is replaced by somebody else. That is where we are right now, this process is something that is not spelt out anywhere so if you look at the constitution, all of the constitution says is that it represents the civil society and the N.T.U.C.B. But if you look at precedence, it has always been N.T.U.C.B. who makes those selections, recommendations and the N.T.U.C.B. decision is approved by the C.S.S.C. So in reality the precedent that we have on record is clearly showing that the Civil Society Steering Committee has always yielded for the NTUCB to make a very healthy decision. We follow the exact same process like last time but with a twist. This time we started the process of engagement with that organisation and that is probably something that we should not have done, probably we should have let sleeping dogs lie and just send them a letter and expect them to say yes. But you see we are running a different show now, I am not the type of person that would step into a scenario and continue doing the same things that people did before and expect different results, we knew from the beginning that the senator is a representative of both organizations. That is the reason why we want to engage them, now we have to be very careful here because we are playing with principles here; we are dealing with very strong principles. One we are dealing with the N.T.U.C.B.’s ability to remove and replace but also before that we are dealing with the N.T.U.C.B.’s right to decide who will represent them or who cannot represent them in this case. And that is something that the NTUCB is not willing to negotiate with anybody.”
According to Mora, APAMO’s decision to step aside and let the N.T.U.C.B. to make the decision was based on precedence as well. And in respect of WIN Belize he says that the plan is to engage them
