UNCAC Experts from Tuvalu and Haiti to Arrive in Belize for Assessment

Michael Peyrefitte

Belize signed on to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, UNCAC, on December ninth, 2016, becoming the hundred and eighty-fourth signatory to that agreement.  Earlier this year, a scheduled visit by a team of experts from Tuvalu and Haiti to conduct an assessment of the country was postponed at the eleventh hour, eliciting sound criticism by the National Trade Union Congress of Belize.  The good news tonight is that the team is set to arrive in country this weekend and meetings have been arranged with various agencies, including the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

“They’re set to arrive in the country this weekend.  So Tuvalu and Haiti, their representatives, their experts, along with the technical people from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, they will be coming into the country over the weekend to launch their site visit, if you speak, next week in Belize.  They are set to meet with everybody and so from those meetings they will then go back and prepare a report as to where they believe our laws fall short and what laws we need to implement and then they will make suggestions after they have done the country visit.  But they’re set to meet with our experts, everybody is in place, the Solicitor General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Financial Intelligence Unit.  The opposition has asked for their own audience and they will get their own audience, but technically who these people meet with it us up to them.  They decide who they want to talk, they decide what information they will deem as important so that they can do their report according to their mandate under the UNODC.”