Another

Kiribati

Constitution

under review

The Kiribati parliament has approved a motion moved by President Teburoro Tito to appoint a five-man select com mittee to review the constitution.

President Tito said the committee will try to have its hearings completed by December 1995, to enable a constitu tion convention to discuss its findings in early 1996.

The committee’s recommendations will be tabled for approval at the first meet ing of parliament in 1996.

President Tito said the present Constitution was not the best for the country. He said some clauses needed to be rectified and defined more explicit ly and other deleted if found unneces sary. This would be the first constitution al review since it was passed 15 years ago.

Meanwhile, the Kiribati parliament has passed a Constitution Amendment Bill to increase the number of government ministeries from nine to 11. The new ministeries created are the Ministery of Environment and Social Development and the Ministry for Communications, Industry and Culture.

Social development will group together youth and sports, women’s groups, old men’s associations, non-governmental organisations and cultural matters.

President Tito said the creation of the ministeries will streamlined the imple mentation of government policy.

Opposition members have criticised the move saying it was implemented to increase government numbers.