Ombudsman releases annual report

It’s an institution that does its work quietly without fanfare … and if statistics are any indication, discharges a heavy workload with more efficiency than most official bodies. I’m talking about the office of the Ombudsman, which recently released its annual report.

Paul Rodriguez, Ombudsman
“Well I want to tell those people and the whole of Belize that the ombudsman office is different, we listen to everybody.”

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
… And between June first, 2006 to June thirtieth, 2007 the Office of the Ombudsman received a total of four hundred and sixty-seven cases. Just over one hundred of those files were complaints against the police. According to Paul Rodriguez, eighty-four of those matters have been resolved and seventeen remain open. Rodriguez says in most of the cases investigated, the complaints against the police were not justified.

Paul Rodriguez
“The police are no saints, but we must also remember that out there you have people who are organised to do crime and they will do crime and continue to do crime.”

“There are at least three sides of a story. Your side, the other person side and the true side and that is where the Ombudsman wants to rest in every case that he investigates.”

In the fifty-eight page document, you can also read samples of informal and formal complaints received and a list of all the agencies and government departments investigated and how those cases were resolved. Rodriguez says despite the work constraints, his office continues to function with success.

Paul Rodriguez
“I like what I do very much. I have grown. This is the tremendous thing about doing public work and especially in this office, I have actually grown, grown in my understanding of people, I have grown in my understanding of myself, I have grown in understanding and knowledge of the country. Man, I would like to continue doing this for the next thirty years.”

Rodriguez’s third three-year term in office expires in July 2008.