ST GEORGE’S, GRENADA: A Commission of Inquiry into allegations that the island’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell took a half million dollar bribe from a German fraudster is likely to get started by the end of the first quarter of 2005. Prime Minister Mitchell himself has said that it is his “understanding” that the commission which was originally scheduled to start late in September 2004 will get going in the New Year. “It is my understanding that the commission will restart before the first quarter of the (new) year,” Prime Minister Mitchell said in response to a question during a recent sitting of parliament. However there has been no official confirmation from the office of the Governor General who originally set up the probe. Governor General Sir Daniel Williams set up a one man inquiry to be conducted by Barbadian jurist Richard Cheltenham to investigate allegations coming out of a report from a Miami publication that Dr Mitchell had accepted half a million US dollars in a briefcase from a Eric Resteiner in return for being made an ambassador. Resteiner, a German national, is reported to be now serving time in a US prison. Prime Minister Mitchell had denied any-wrong doing, saying he had accepted 15-thousand dollars from the man for “legitimate expenses.” Prime Minister Mitchell was fighting for his political survival in a four-month swirling controversy before Hurricane Ivan swept in early September switching national attention to basic survival and security. But during a radio address this week, opposition leader Tillman Thomas suggested it might be time again to look into the issue. “The movement that started in Grenada just before Ivan struck to ensure that all of us in public life account for our actions, (should be) revived and sustained. “There is still a dark cloud that hangs over our nation – and it must be cleared in the New Year,” Thomas said in his address, making clear reference to the talked-about inquiry. “The challenges Ivan has posed, should not suspend our appetite for accountability, it should hasten the drive,” he said. When the commission starts, it will be the first time in recent Caribbean history that a sitting leader has been investigated for corruption. Reprinted from Caribupdate.com