Governance Reform Delivery Manager Kedrick E. Malone, second from right, was a guest on Talking Points on ZBVI 780 AM on Monday, July 22, 2024. From left is Damion C. Grange and Violet Thomas-Gaul, while right is Elvin Grant. Photo: Facebook

Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Hon Natalio D. Wheatley (R7) said, as of July 18, 2024, 37 of the 50 Recommendations (74%) by the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) have been completed and 13 Recommendations (26%) are in progress. Photo: GIS/File

Both the government and the Office of the Governor have failed to meet previous deadlines.

Malone was a guest on Talking Points on ZBVI 780 AM on Monday, July 22, 2024, replacing Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Hon Natalio D. Wheatley (R7) at the last minute.

“As of today, I am confident…I think it’s difficult to understand unless you are inside of government that a lot of these issues they unfold as they go and a lot of things you don’t anticipate come up and you have to deal with them. So the deadline, I mean, there is no roadmap for this, there is no blueprint for how you go through a COI on your own,” he said.

Premier Wheatley in a press conference on July 19, 2024, revealed that as of July 18, 2024, 37 of the 50 or 74% of the Recommendations by the Commission of Inquiry have been completed with 13 or 24% of Recommendations in progress.

Of the 13 remaining recommendations to complete, 8 of them involve the approval and passage of legislation.

‘Long-standing governance issues being resolved’- Malone

Meanwhile, Mr Malone said the opportunity has also been taken to resolve “long-standing governance issues “that goes beyond the CoI.

He likened the CoI to performing surgery on oneself saying the “issues that caused the CoI still exist to some degree in the system and you have to work through those issues… The scope of what is being done goes beyond the CoI”.

Malone explained that the opportunity was seized to fix issues such as those that arose with public assistance.

“A lot of additional work went into solving that issue because it’s a huge issue trying to fix the social safety net so the scope of what is being done goes beyond the CoI,” Malone said.

He also opined this is the reason the CoI seems to be taking a lot of time to complete.

“These are things that have been going on for a long time, so things like public assistance, statutory bodies, a lot of other issues when you open them up…when you do there are other issues that you need to solve that may not have been emphasised in the CoI…[that is] why it's taking a bit of time.”