P.U.P. Says Good Governance is a Shared Responsibility
John Briceño
Today, the People’s United Party launched a “Policy Paper,” titled Good Governance – A Shared Responsibility. The paper contains eleven points that the P.U.P. say will form the basis of their consultations and reflect what the public expects from good governance. The eleven points of the paper that the P.U.P. seeks to address are categorized with specific steps that they intend to take starting with an Empowered Legislature, Putting Politics and Ministerial Power in Their Proper Places, Government Procurement, Election Reform, Separation of Powers, Strengthening Checks and Balances, Fulfilling Regional and Global Commitments, Effective and Efficient Public Service, Keeping Focus on Long Term – which includes a reconfiguration of the S.S.B. Board. The last two points include recommendations on Citizen Security and Educating Citizens on how we are governed. News Five was at today’s launch. Here’s how that went:
John Briceño, P.U.P. Leader
“These eleven recommendations will form the basis of our consultations and are by no means exhaustive. They form the framework of what we hope to become a more comprehensive document. We look forward to sharing our ideas with you and welcome your ideas and participation in our effort to build a Belize that works for all.”
Micah Goodin
Micah Goodin, BYM, Eastern Caucus
“The P.U.P. will improve legislative governance by providing greater oversight by the National Assembly with respect to the work of the House Committee; increase number of meetings of the House and Senate per year; make House Committee Meetings truly public and participatory, review and promulgate the Standing Orders to the wider public can know and understand the National Assembly. The PUP will empower the Senate House of Representatives to act as oversight body to the government: more authority and autonomy for the senate o that it can carry out its functions; immediate appointment of the thirteenth senate; Establish a standing senate committee that will have the authority to conduct inquiries into any and all matters with a view to advancing the case of nation building.”
John Briceño
“The Social Security Board controls the workers monies and it is important that we manage the monies properly. There are instances when the Social Security makes investments and that hasn’t paid out dividend and haven’t worked out well. We have to ensure that the workers can have a true say about how these monies are going to be used or invested. We believe if we are to bring in another board member, which in this case would have probably been from the religious community- the churches- that they can elect a member of the board. We just feel that it can have better accountability and governance as to how we are managing the monies from Social Security. I think we made some very, very important things here. We are talking from looking at how we are going to govern at the national assembly that we are going to have more meetings so that we can discuss the people’s work; that representatives can have access to the budget- that not because your party did not win you can’t have access or do work in your constituency. We are also looking at how we can strengthen the work of the senate so that they can have more oversight into the work of the House of Representatives; not to prevent them from doing their work but to have more oversight. We even talking about looking at the system of governance. We have thirty five years of experience. We can look at how it has worked, what has worked, what has not worked, what changes do we need to do or do we just need to do certain adjustments or do we look at a different form of governance. This is something that we want to have that discussion once we get in with the Belizean people. These are decisions that our people are going to do. Now what is different now from when we got in in 1998? I think that we have learnt from what has worked and what has not worked. One of the things that we have seen is that for something to work, we need to have more buy in do that we need to have more buy in. And that is why what we present here we refer to is as a living document, because we want to meet with our social partners, the public sector, the private sector, the N.G.O.s, the journalists, to have a discussion with them on what we can do to better the paper, what they like, better ideas. At the end of the day what we are saying is that it is about good governance, a shared responsibility, between the politicians and the citizens.”
