Daniel Thwaites | One word on the Integrity Commission

I caught a little bit of the Integrity Commission’s press conference last Monday. Then I read the document they circulated to the media. Remember, as I pointed out in last week’s column, these are good folks doing a bad job.

I just knew I had heard or read something like this before. Then it hit me! Eusebius records this precise situation regarding blessed Origen, a father of the Church. In a fit of self-righteousness, Origen relied on an excessively literal reading of Matthew 19:12, where Jesus says, "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," and so proceeded to emasculate himself. Received history is that he removed everything, the meat and two veg, the twig and berries, the turkey neck and dumplings, the three-piece set. That was … unfortunate.
So how do I say this again? Ahhhhhm. Dear commissioners, you’re doing it wrong. You’re mucking it up. You’re blaming the act, and although it is imperfect, you’re reading it wrong. The Integrity Act, or Matthew 19:12 for that matter, isn’t what has created this mess. You have.

Don’t worry, I’m coming to the commissioner’s explanations and obfuscations. But before that, another point: It’s well-known in the study of rhetoric and verbal antics that wherever someone is most emphatic and unyielding is often their very weakest point. I’m not sure why, but it’s one of those odd quirks of humanity that insecurity on a point or an issue generally causes us to become more categorical, voluminous, aggressive and inflexible about it. Almost as if our primary aim is as much to convince ourselves as others. Therefore, our capacity for self-delusion is near limitless.

I’m quoting from the document given to the media by the Integrity Commission at their first press briefing:
[T]he Board of Commissioners … wishes to state categorically that it was not our intention to bring into disrepute the credibility of the findings which were contained in the final report, which was submitted to the Houses of Parliament. Neither was it the board of commissioners' intention to discredit the tremendous contribution that the former contractor general, Mr Dirk Harrison, has made in good governance and public accountability. The concerns expressed by the commissioners were in relation to the draft report, and not the final report that was submitted, as widely reported in the media. WE MUST POINT OUT THAT THE LANGUAGE USED IN THE DRAFT REPORT WAS INFLAMMATORY AND WAS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE EVIDENCE. HE MADE CHANGES TO THE DRAFT. IT WAS NEVER THE INTENTION BY THE COMMISSION TO 'COVER UP' FOR ANYONE.

The capitalisations are in the original, and we all know what that means. When I get a WhatsApp message capitalised and bolded, I can hear the writer screaming through the phone.
Just give the commission’s statement a moment’s reflection and you will immediately see how preposterous it is. If the commission’s objections were to the draft report, why in heaven’s name did they release it with the final report?

What purpose could that have possibly served except to undermine the work of the former contractor general? Could they really be now saying that the whole firestorm of controversy created by their statement that an “objective reader” would be left in doubt about the conclusions referred to a different report than the one it was actually attached to?

Who would publicise an internal comment on a draft to a final report? What would be the purpose of that? Public mischief?
Of note, when invited by the media to say what was inflammatory in the draft, the chairman declined to elaborate.

Dis is a joke ting! The Integrity Commission would have showed some integrity and engendered more public confidence if it had simply apologised for the miscalculation and error in judgement when it appended its letter to the Rooms on the Beach report.
In fact, the history of the report is more interesting than the commissioners would have us commoners believe. It was in hand from July 2018, but no discussion was had on it till November that year, some four to five months later. By that time, the document had been scanned into a computer, subjected to fancy software that turned it into an editable document, and then manipulated.

Thereafter, aside from some small grammatical changes, the supposedly “inflammatory” language that had to be excised came down to one word. One. Word.
So a 10-month delay in the release of the report, the cautionary letter that has now been partially disowned, the public shaming of the former contractor general, and the damage done to public trust, seems to have come down to one word. Are you getting this?

It turns out that the word 'gifted' was the source of great disquiet in the halls of the Integrity Commission. Great consternation and much sweat and fretting surrounded that word, and hence, after the report had sat with the commissioners, that word was substituted out and replaced with “handed over”. So the beach at the centre of the Rooms on the Beach controversy wasn’t “gifted”, it was “handed over”.

Good Lord! That’s where we’re at. Look around you. Read the newspapers. Almost everyone acknowledges that whatever the positives, and there are many, Jamaica is right now suffering a severe crisis in public confidence in governance. And what is the premier institutional watchdog doing while Petrojam is in flames, used cars remain unresolved, the next round of bushing is a by-election away? The premier institutional watchdog is having fits about the word 'gifted' as against the words 'handed over'.

I’M ABSOLUTELY 100% CERTAIN AND SURE IT WAS NEVER THE INTENTION OF THE COMMISSION TO 'COVER UP' FOR ANYONE, but you’ve now gifted (sorry, handed over) a large chunk of credibility for naught, and created an additional unnecessary controversy.

The international donors funding this Integrity Commission should seriously rethink that spend. Look here: When the chairman was asked what Dirk Harrison has been doing for the past year, he dodged by saying the former contractor general has been part of some Committee for Corruption Prosecution. There was no follow-up question.

In fact, that committee has met only twice in the last year, both meetings taken together lasting less than an hour. Joke ting!

- Daniel Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.