Peter Espeut | Many corrupt acts not illegal in Jamaica

If scammers were members of parliament (MPs), “chopping” would never be a crime. If fraudsters were lawmakers, fraud would never be illegal. Is it surprising that – even in 2023 – corrupt acts popular among politicians are not crimes under the laws of Jamaica?

In most democracies, nepotism and cronyism are crimes punishable by law, but not in Jamaica. Politicians can exert influence so that contracts are openly awarded to family members and cronies, and the most that might happen is a slap on the wrist, or they may be forced to resign (from some appointed post, but never from elected office); but they never face the courts.

Countries serious about eliminating political corruption find a way to criminalise conflicts of interest and breaches of procurement guidelines, but not Jamaica. In my view, Jamaica’s legal regime facilitates political corruption by not making corruption illegal, and making it hard to detect.

Countries serious about eliminating political corruption require political donations to be made public, to avoid back-door deals in dark smoky rooms. Billions of dollars are donated to Jamaican political parties – by God knows who – in absolute secrecy! Why are alarm bells not ringing loudly in people’s heads?

DECLARE ASSETS

Name me any serious democracy that allows politicians to declare their assets in secret! In serious democracies, public officers declare their assets (and the assets of their close family relations) for the public to peruse; loss of some types of privacy is the price of holding public office.

Name me any serious democracy where there is no penalty for failing to file your declaration, or failing to file it on time? It is called “accountability”. We have little experience with this rarified concept.

Local people know when politicians own property in their area. If declarations of assets were public, persons would be able to observe and report omissions or false declarations. Now we can’t have that, can we!

For decades in published reports, corruption watchdogs point out impropriety and breaches of good governance and best practice, but no one in Jamaica can ever be charged for them – and made to face the courts – because Jamaica’s politicians have not made these improprieties illegal.

Why do corruption watchdogs report impropriety, and refer the matters to prosecutors for a determination, when they know there can never be any prosecution? It is all a grand show and pretence.

Big announcement in 2017! The government is creating The Integrity Commission as an anti-corruption agency! Now we can bring political corruption to an end!

Ginnalship!

What the Government did was to merge the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) – which was very effective at detecting impropriety – with the Parliamentary Integrity Commission, and silence them with a gag clause. They can’t even tell the public if they are investigating anyone or anything – whether they have any work at all to do!

Whereas before 2017 you could go on the OCG’s website and peruse all government contracts, today that information is a state secret. How are we to detect influence-peddling and quid pro quo if the government hides from the public information on contracts they enter into? There is less transparency now than before, and less corruption detection and enforcement. The OCG was successfully neutered.

SCANDALOUS

So we neither know who donates to political parties, nor who gets government contracts. Scandalous and shameful!

The pretence also takes place in the arena of environmental protection and conservation. Jamaica had a perfectly good government environmental agency – the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) governed by the NRCA Act. It was becoming too effective, and had to be stopped!

It was merged with the Town and Country Planning Authority to form the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA). Now the NRCA has no staff (all work for NEPA), and there is no NEPA Act. Whereas the focus of the NRCA was scrutinising project proposals in terms of whether they might damage the natural environment, now the focus is granting “planning permission”. The NRCA was successfully neutered.

Let’s be blunt: it is a perfect scam! Jamaica’s politicians are placed in a position where no one except themselves can enact legislation to make their malfeasance illegal, and make corruption detection easy. But to do so would be against their pecuniary interest. Politicians will never pass laws to detect and punish their corrupt acts unless forced to do so.

And who is in a position to force the enactment of genuine anti-corruption legislation? Only the private sector (which lubricates the party machinery) can easily pressure the politicians to put proper anti-corruption legislation in place. But, as you could easily imagine, it is not in the best interests of the private sector to do so, as they might be exposed. It takes two to tango!

What can be done?

The Church – once the moral compass of the nation – must insist on transparency and accountability. Many private sector members attend churches, and clergymen – who are supposed to be concerned about ethical matters – should try to persuade them to withhold party funding until serious anti-corruption legislation is enacted.

There are a number of issues worthy of civil society protest: the absence of serious anti-corruption legislation, certainly, but also the government’s failure to call local government elections in the face of almost certain defeat.

As the party in power seeks its own advantage by fair means or foul, Jamaica’s ranking will – deservedly – continue to decline on the Anti-Corruption Index and on the Democracy Index.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com