All this week, we've been reporting on the special gift that the city council returned to a Belmopan businesswoman.
She left an envelope stuffed with fifty $50 dollar bills on the City Administrator's desk. Shortly after that, the Mayor wrote her explaining why they cannot accept what he called a gift.
City Hall doesn't want there to be any suggestion that financial gifts are welcome in exchange for special considerations, and yesterday, the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a statement applauding them.
That press release says, quote, "The... ("BCCI") commends the resolute action from Belize City Mayor…of condemning an alleged attempted illegal gift, i.e. bribe to at least one City employee from a businessperson. The fight against corruption is…won by small acts of rejection of these corrupt behaviors which have, detrimentally, become engrained in our way of doing business." End quote.
And while the release glosses over the fact that it was one of the business fraternity who offered this dubious gift, the Chamber laments, quote, "We are reminded of how pervasive, and indeed how brazen, these practices have become."
The Chamber then goes on to lament that since Belize signed onto UNCAC, the anti-corruption mechanisms of the convention still don't have any real effect here just yet.
They say that they've written to the Government of Belize requesting updates on the implementation process and have gotten no response.
We went inquiring to Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte, who is leading the Government's implementation process of UNCAC, and he said that the Chamber hasn't written to him. He added that an executive summary for UNCAC has just been sent to the Government, and that quote, "We are in the process of finalizing it. We are not yet at the stage when legislation is agreed. There are two more phases." He added that the Chamber has a representative on the project board for UNCAC who should be updating them.
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