PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – A Commission from the OAS Mechanism for Follow-Up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC) will conduct, from April 8 to 10, an on-site visit to Haiti with the consent of the host country, as part of the follow-up process carried out by the Mechanism in various countries of the region.
The Commission will be made up of representatives from Ecuador and Panama as well as from the Department of Legal Cooperation of the Secretariat for Legal Affairs of the OAS, in its capacity as the Technical Secretariat of the MESICIC. Meetings will take place with representatives from oversight bodies responsible for preventing, detecting and punishing corruption, to review the manner in which the Inter-American Convention against Corruption is being implemented in Haiti and to provide firsthand, objective and complete information for consideration in its national report, which will be adopted by the Committee of Experts of the MESICIC in a meeting in September, 2014.
It is also expected that meetings will take place with Haitian civil society organizations in order to address the topics that are currently being reviewed in the Fourth Round of the Mechanism. In addition, taking into account that Haiti was not party to the MESICIC during its First Round of Review, the on-site visit will also provide an opportunity to address the implementation of topics reviewed in that Round, such as conflicts of interest; systems for registering income, assets and liabilities; access to public information; and mechanisms to encourage participation of civil society in efforts to prevent corruption.
Within the framework of the Fourth Round of evaluations, the OAS Anticorruption Mechanism is also expected to visit Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname in April.
The MESICIC, which began to operate in 2002, is a cooperation mechanism between States, with the participation of civil society organizations, established within the framework of the OAS, in which the legal/institutional framework of each country is reviewed for suitability with the Inter-American Convention against Corruption as well as the objective results achieved therein. The incorporation of on-site visits as a stage and integral part of the MESICIC represents an innovative and pioneering initiative of the OAS, which, with the support of the Technical Secretariat, has further strengthened this review process.
Haiti joined the MESICIC on December 10, 2010, during the Third Meeting of the Conference of the States Parties to the MESICIC, held in Brasilia, Brazil.
