By Belize Live News Staff: Testing officials is one thing. Acting on what the tests reveal is another.
That was the concern raised by Lead Opposition Senator Sheena Pitts during Thursday’s Senate debate on changes to the National Security Council Act. The amendment would introduce polygraph testing and vetting for those connected to the council.
Pitts said the bill lays out the screening process but is silent on what happens if serious red flags are found. To illustrate, she offered a hypothetical scenario involving the country’s top cop.
“Let’s say for example we find out that the Commissioner of Police is a drug user, cocaine, on the verge of being broke, and that a polygraph and a background and drug screening reveals that. I am not seeing anywhere in the bill that informs me that something as serious as that, which would then suggest that the Commissioner of Police is susceptible to compromise or undue influence, that there would be any treatment of that,” she said.
Her point: an official facing addiction or financial trouble could be vulnerable to pressure from criminal groups, and the law should spell out how such risks would be addressed.
On the government side, Senator Anthony Sylvestre maintained that the sensitivity of the council’s work justifies the tougher screening.
