Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Chan­dresh Shar­ma will to­day meet with his col­leagues from the mu­nic­i­pal and re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Com­mis­sion­ers, to dis­cuss reg­u­la­tions un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act. The meet­ing will al­so be at­tend­ed by the com­mis­sion's chair­man Er­ic St Cyr, deputy chair­man Neil Rol­ing­son, Gladys Gafoor, Prof Ann-Marie Bisses­sar and Se­u­nar­ine Jokhoo. It is sched­uled to take place at the Cara Suites Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre in Clax­ton Bay from 9 am. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Shar­ma said that the aim of the meet­ing is to ed­u­cate the peo­ple un­der his charge with re­gards to the ac­cu­rate fil­ing of forms.

"Once you are in of­fice and in pub­lic life, there are cer­tain pro­ce­dures which must be fol­lowed. We are try­ing to fa­cil­i­tate the process. The law of the land re­quires peo­ple to file and they some­times make hu­man er­rors so the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion is there to an­swer ques­tions," he added. Shar­ma ex­plained that it was the first time that such a meet­ing is be­ing held with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties. Among the is­sues to be dis­cussed are:

• Oblig­a­tions un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act

• Is­sues re­lat­ed to con­flict of in­ter­est

• Busi­ness ethics and

• The re­quire­ments for per­sons in pub­lic life.

Among those in­vit­ed to at­tend the func­tion are of­fi­cials from the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Coun­cil, Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Com­mu­ni­ty Im­prove­ment Ser­vices Ltd, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny and the Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd.

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, it was stat­ed that 76 mem­bers of statu­to­ry boards and the state en­ter­prise who re­port to the Min­is­ter of Labour, Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment held a sim­i­lar brief­ing ses­sion with mem­bers of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion at the Hilton Trinidad on Au­gust 12. That meet­ing was at­tend­ed by Er­rol McLeod, Min­is­ter of Labour, Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment who com­mend­ed the board mem­bers. He said: "I was very care­ful and metic­u­lous and still am, in the se­lec­tion of per­sons with high cal­i­bre and pro­fes­sion­al ded­i­ca­tion to serve as chair­per­sons and mem­bers of the six statu­to­ry bod­ies and one state en­ter­prise un­der my purview.

"I have not had cause to ques­tion the in­tegri­ty of any board mem­ber in the Min­istry of Labour and Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment. "I see our dis­cus­sions on in­tegri­ty as one that can on­ly serve to strength­en and val­i­date our in­ner val­ue sys­tem and deep­en our un­der­stand­ing of the frame­work with­in which we are re­quired to gov­ern." The par­tic­i­pants at that meet­ing in­clud­ed mem­bers from the Min­i­mum Wages Board, the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board, Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty, Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies, the Boil­er Ex­am­in­ers Board, Ad­vi­so­ry Friend­ly So­ci­eties Coun­cil and the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny.