THE Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights has received a total of 40 submissions on the Code of Conduct Bill.
This was confirmed by committee’s chairman Alvick Maharaj after hearing the last submission from Water Authority of Fiji in Parliament.
Out of the 40 submissions, 25 were oral submissions while 15 were written.
Mr Maharaj said they would hand the submission to the drafters for further scrutiny.
“Today was the last day of submissions, now we will take all the submissions to the drafters before we further deliberate on it,” he said.
“We will then submit a report in a future Parliament sitting.”
Meanwhile, Water Authority of Fiji manager strategic planning Seymour Singh told the committee there was a need to clarify the public office appointments listed in the Bill.
He further questioned whether the Bill also applied to those who would act in the position while the public officer holder was away.
“If the chief executive officer is sick then someone would step in to replace him to do their job, they might not get those allowances or acting allowances because it is normally you act on 10 to 15 days and you are applicable for the acting allowances, what happens in those cases, we are concerned in how it applies to them as well,” Mr Singh said.
The Bill, he said was aimed to set the standards of conduct within public office officials to ensure that appointees acted ethically at all times.
“This code of conduct acts as a national guideline for the appointees. And we understand that in Schedule 6 it is across the board, regardless of what the individual roles we may be faced with, the ethical dilemma just need clarification on a regulation, law or procedure and that is what your code of conduct is designed to help in, and that is our understanding of the Bill. We all have a responsibility to do the right thing even when nobody is watching.”
If enacted, the Bill would establish the transparency and accountability commission to ensure that public office holders aren’t involved in corruption or abuse of office.
The Bill applies to the President, Prime Minister , Assistant Ministers, Speaker of Parliament, members of Parliament and all public office holders.
