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Late last year, there was a lot of pressure built up around the signing of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, UNCAC.  The teachers went on a record 11 day strike, the business sector threatened a shutdown, and, under pressure, the Barrow Administration signed unto the agreement in December.  But that was the easy part, now it’s all about the long, hard and expensive road ahead. That’s putting in the mechanisms to implement the convention.  

That journey began today with a workshop at the Inspiration Center. It’s the preliminary stage where the convention and all the requirements are explored. The Attorney General Mike Peyreffite gave us a better understanding about the workshop. Legal expert Cristina Ritter also discussed the overall importance of UNCAC for Belize.

Hon. Michael Peyreffite - Attorney General
"The two day workshop is an introductory workshop to say what will happen to prepare us for what we are to be prepare for, it is a meeting to set up a meeting but it is important because what we need to do is to figure out the structure of UNCAC, what it will have to look like because you may have some misconceptions that don’t go along with the program because essentially what we are doing at this point, this is a lead up to what is called a self-assessment. We have to look at what UNCAC will require and to get there we have to know first where we are, where we are lacking and what do we need to do. We may actually find that legislation and institutional frameworks are not the problem but implementation might be the problem we don’t know, that is why it is called a self-assessment."

"We wanted to start the self-assessment from now because what we found out is that most states, and you are given a 2 month period to complete it, but most states don’t complete it within in that 2 month period, we don’t want to be accused of that so what we wanted to do is start very early so by the end of August or so we would have definitely at the very least completed the self-assessment."

Cristina Ritter - Legal Expert, UNODC
"We will start by addressing basic corruption concepts like the nature, definition of corruption, causes, strategies to prevent it to fight it, the historical development of anti-corruption and this is to provide participants with a context and a logic behind the convention so for the second part of day 1 this afternoon  we will analyze the convention through its 4 pillars which are preventive measures, criminalization and law enforcement, international cooperation and asset  recovery and then for day 2 tomorrow we will start with a presentation on the implementation review mechanism, its methodology the steps that Belize has to know and we will start with  drafting sessions in the self-assessment."

"The UNCAC encompasses all the international anti-corruption standards so the country can go beyond if you wish but the fact that it is in line with the convention you know you have the tools to fight and to prevent corruption so additional to the legislative assistance that we can provide to be part of the convention of the conference of the state parties gives Belize an opportunity to also see what other countries are doing , good practices to implement that legislation in practice and to be sure it will be an improvement in the fight against corruption for all the citizens in the country."

The workshop continues tomorrow. Important to note is that AG Mike Peyreffite will be traveling to Vienna Austria in June for a meeting. At this meeting 2 states will assess Belize's s position and will guide Belize in fulfilling all the requirements under this convention. Again this is just the first stage.