So, for the next 6 days, Anti-Corruption week will have feature a suite of activities around the topic. This evening, the Attorney General spoke about how the first event went yesterday:

Mike Peyrefitte, Attorney General
"We had a panel discussion last night. It's all a part of the corruption, leading up to December 9th which is anti-corruption day and so what we did last night we had the members from the UNDP; one based in Panama, one based in Salvador came. We had an education really of what UNCAC is all about, what we've done so far and where we are and as a part of the activities for the week we had essay contest leading up to this week asking people from the tertiary schools, the secondary schools to submit essays based of what they conceived to be corruption and what in their opinion is corruption and they submitted those, over 40 essays and we picked a winner from the tertiary level, from the secondary level and there is also a jingle competition and there was a winner as well. So we believe that it went very well. It continues to go well. This entire week we will be having interviews and talks about anti-corruption leading up to December 9th. All in anticipation that by end of December Tavolone and Haiti who are the two countries assessing us would be finished with their preliminary report for them to make a country visit to Belize end of January, where they will interview our experts or whoever they want in the public service so they can learn how we operate and then from there they can make their recommendation that will compile a final report from the first assessment and the first stage."

We also asked the AG about the latest developments in Belize's efforts to fully roll out UNCAC in Belize. He said that everything is moving according to plan:

Mike Peyrefitte, Attorney General
"The United Nations Development Program in Belize as well as the officer out of the AG's ministry; the SolGen, the crown counsels - they all done fantastic work. We have to understand and appreciate that it will not happen overnight, it will not happen in a day, it will not happen in an hour. A foundation has to be laid and what we are doing now is laying that foundation. People take the very irresponsible position that they haven't seen anything, but as far as you UN is concern we are following exactly what we should do. There has been a self-assessment process going on from the past several months that will take us and have is answer questions to see where we fall short in terms of legislation and structures. The whole purpose of the assessment, the country visit, the country review is for us to say okay fine, this is where you are Belize, this is where you need to be, these are the things you need to implement. So we are not there yet, but so far we've been laying an excellent foundation. We have a project board that's been doing a lot of work and everybody is on the project board; the Opposition, the business community, the NGO - everybody. It's not just a government thing. It's countrywide and from every sector of the country and the economy and so we are happy with the progress that we are making so far."