United People’s (UP) party Member of Parliament (MP) Hon. Maurice Lake, has travelled to Curacao to participate in a two-day Anti-Corruption Procurement & Integrity Training Course in Willemstad that starts on Wednesday.
The course is an initiative of the International Ombudsman Institute (IOI) in collaboration with the International Anti-Corruption Academy which is based in Austria.
The IOI has decided to make this training available to its members and opened it to members of the Caribbean Ombudsman Association (CAROA).
“I am along with my colleague Member of Parliament Emmanuel Christophe, will be representing the Parliament of Sint Maarten at this two-day course since the opportunity was provided for other entities to also partake in this very important training course.
“Our own Ombudsman approached parliament and presented this opportunity for one or more MPs to take part in the course. I am looking forward to the sessions and seeing how this can contribute to good governance and the further advancement of our democratic system in the interests of the people of our country. We are planning to establish our own Integrity Chamber, and this will shed some light on how we are moving forward.
“Trinidad & Tobago has their own Integrity Commission, so it’s an opportunity to learn from others about their experiences and best practices and fine-tune it to our own situation and of course run by our own professionals who knows our culture,” MP Hon. Maurice Lake said on Tuesday.
Some of the sessions that MP Lake and MP Emmanuel Christophe will be participating in are: Forms of Corruption, Definitions and Concepts; Public Procurement, Vulnerabilities and Best Practices; Lessons Learned and Case Studies; Organizational and Institutional Integrity 1 and 2; Individual Integrity – Responding to Ethical Dilemma.