Politics

Timothy against implementing Integrity in Public Office Act

By DWNews Editor ⋅ April 14, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Dominicanewsonline 14.APR.08

Former Deputy leader of the opposition United Workers Party says he is opposed to implementation of the Integrity in Public Office Act of 2003. There has been repeated calls for the implementation of the law passed in the house of assembly and assented to the president since June 2003.

A petition, which is currently in circulation, calls for the hasty implementation of the act, but Julius Timothy a former finance minister in the United Workers Party government says the act would be too expensive to implement in its current form.

“The country was in the middle of an austerity programme and we were presenting to the parliament an integrity legislation that would cost us in the region of 1.2 million dollars to operate on an annual basis,” the former UWP member said.

He said he opposed the act from the beginning, since the Labour Party government in 2003 introduced it.

“We are in a third world country, this is first world legislation,” Timothy, a government minister said.

According to Timothy, Trinidad is thinking of repealing the act after which Dominica’s own legislation was patterned. The act requires a wide range of public officers to declare their assets.

“You would have tremendous difficulty getting people to serve on boards,” the economic development minister said.

The government of Dominica has said it will implement the act after some amendments are made.

Tags: Government, Labour Party, Labour Party government, Prime Minister, Society and Culture, United Workers Party