The government plans to release the draft code of conduct for ministers of government, members of the National Assembly and public office holders for public scrutiny but in the meantime cabinet ministers have already started to abide by the draft, Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman said yesterday.
“It is believed that we should open it up for criticisms and critique and for it to be distilled and refined,” the minister, who crafted the document, said yesterday when asked about it at his post-cabinet press briefing.
He said it would be released and he expects that there will be some harsh criticisms but he feels it would lead to a stronger document.
“We thought that in the end it is better to share it with the public and then finalise it rather than say to the public this is our final document.
Because in a sense you would legislating for yourself and in doing so you run the risk of… having a natural bias to lessen the harshness of such a document and… being accused [of that] even if your intention was not to do so,” he said.
According to the minister, once the code is made public the government will monitor the results, both good and bad, and take it through a distilling process and hopefully within a few weeks would have a final document.
However, he said that in the interim members of the Cabinet have already been working in accordance with what exists and are already bound by the document even though it has not been ratified in a public way.
The code of conduct was promised by the coalition government which had set itself the deadline of getting it done within the first 100 days in office.
In the plan, it was promised that the code would be established for parliamentarians, ministers and others holding high positions in public office and would include mechanisms for demitting office if in violation of the code.
Trotman had previously told this newspaper that the code would have been made public at the end of the 100 days.
