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For almost the entire year of 2017, the weekly revelations from the Senate Inquiry into the Immigration Department dominated the evening news. 

You’ll remember some of those explosive testimonies from public officers and Government officials who had to answer some very uncomfortable questions about the Auditor General’s Report on Immigration from 2013. That’s when allegations and counter allegations of corruption and hustling at the department, between the years of 2011 and 2013, were discussed in surprisingly candid detail.

Those hearings concluded 1 year and 3 months ago, and the Senate Special Select Committee has still not been able to produce their draft report on their findings. And it’s easy to see why; hundreds of hours of testimony made up those hearings, and which means that the senators and their team from the National Assembly were most likely overwhelmed by the task of having to review all that evidence.

Well, Chairman Aldo Salazar told the press this afternoon, that the report should be ready to be tabled in the Senate within in about 6 to 8 weeks:

Hon. Aldo Salazar - UDP Senator
"I can't give you an exact date as we discussed earlier. The good news is that we are having some progress. We have some information that was pending for quite some time; pending to come to us and we have it. Now we've been taking steps to finalize the draft, basically. I am hopeful that- the part that I can speak about in terms of myself- we are looking at another six to eight weeks. That doesn't mean that the public will get it at that point but that is what I am thinking."

Reporter
"There is also a possibility of a minority report. Can you explain?"

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Well, yes the rules provide for a minority report. Anybody who doesn't agree with the majority can prepare a minority report. So, as you would know, as we discussed previously, the composition of the select committee is that we have the chairman and we have five senators. The chairman doesn't have a vote unless there is a tie, which means that there are five other senators. So, there will hardly be any tie. It is impossible to have  tie with five people if everybody is present. So, that possibility is next to zero unless someone is really absent for a prolonged period of time, then I would have to use that casting vote. So, that means that there is going to be a majority. Of the five, the majority is three. So, that majority, whoever they are, would have the majority report."

As soon as it becomes a public document, we’ll tell you all about the Senate’s findings.