Good Governance Unit Engages Ministry After Cabinet Shake-Up

At the start of the weekend, the Good Governance Unit sat down with Tanya Santos, the CEO for Immigration and Labor. Leading the discussion was Director Cesar Ross, who used the meeting to lay out the unit’s plans moving forward, especially considering the recent Cabinet reshuffle. The goal is to keep ministry officials in the loop and ensure everyone’s on the same page as the new agenda takes shape. He said the unit is mapping short‑ and long‑term deliverables to boost transparency, accountability, and responsiveness across government agencies.

 

Cesar Ross, Director, Good Governance Unit

“Today, we are here to present ourselves to our new CEO and to discuss our way forward, what our agenda will be for the upcoming months and for the upcoming year. We are charged particularly with looking at policies of good governance and introducing a good governance agenda. Whether it’s embracing policies from the Plan Belize or the medium-term development strategies, from UNCAC’s recommendations which is the United Nations’ Convention Against Corruption or from the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption under the OAS. What we are laying out are what are the deliverables that can be developed and delivered in the short term and the long term when it comes to looking at policies, when it comes to improving transparency, accountability and responsiveness by the different government agencies and the different government ministries. There are certain recommendations, both from Plan Belize, like the medium-term development strategies that have been endorsed by UNCAC and MESICIC, actually. Things like a Whistleblowers Act, promoting and pushing through a Whistleblower’s Act to protect people who want to report corruption at any levels of governance. There is also, for instance, the recommendation to introduce certain campaign finance legislation and policies that would make it much more clear how political parties and how elections are better coordinated in Belize.”

 

Here are our public‑interest questions: When will specific timelines and draft bills be published, and how will progress be measured? Who will enforce new rules and what penalties will have teeth? How will whistleblowers be kept safe in practice, not just on paper? If campaign‑finance transparency is coming, will parties and candidates disclose donors before the next election cycle? And in a reshuffled Cabinet, which ministry owns each deliverable, so responsibility doesn’t blur when politics shift?