P.C.C. Cutting it Close to November 14th Deadline

As October draws to a close, the deadline for the People’s Constitution Commission’s (P.C.C.) final report looms just two weeks away. However, with the clock ticking, it seems increasingly unlikely that the commission will meet the deadline. Nearly two years ago, the P.C.C. embarked on a comprehensive review of Belize’s constitution, conducting a series of public consultations and preparing recommendations for the Prime Minister. In June, the commission received a six-month extension to complete its work and was expected to present an interim report to stakeholders on October sixteenth. Unfortunately, that date has come and gone without any interim report. News Five reached out to P.C.C. Chairman Anthony Chanona for a comment on the delay, but he declined. He did, however, inform us that the P.C.C. plans to meet on November fourth to conduct the presentation. We also spoke with P.C.C. Commissioner Caleb Orosco, who attributed the delay to poor time management.

 

Caleb Orosco, P.C.C. Commissioner 

“The commission process was to meet in October eighth, if I remember right, October fifteenthth deadline. And we were all supposed to sign off on letter heads back to the thirtieth, at least that was the original discussion. Now, there’s a request for a second extension of the time to address the deficiency of developing the recommendation report.  And that’s problematic because if there’s an exercise in poor judgment and poor management in taxpayers resources what makes the chair think that a second extension will correct a problem of poor judgment and poor management in the first place. So that’s one. Two, the issue with the recommendation really, I predicted, would be one of delays. And unnecessary delays because a lot of these things could have been fixed months ago, but they weren’t. At the heart of this is getting a consultant who is struggling with keeping to deadline and making sure we have a, I guess a basic functional document for us to engage.  Why should the process struggle with completing a report for recommendations, when there is foresight, when you have a committee of thematic chairs telling you what to do and how to do. You’re giving instruction and still instruction isn’t followed. The heart of this is, what’s going to happen?  Will the request for second extension even go through? Because I personally don’t know that Parliament moves very fast to address issues of extension, especially with mandates like these. And I don’t know what will happen if the so-called meeting to review the so-called recommendation between, I believe, the fourth and the seventh is going to progress any further than making your comments and then we wait.”