Editorial | Why the PM should explain

Inevitably, the Integrity Commission’s (IC) publication on Sunday of Opposition Leader Mark Golding’s latest declaration of his wealth has raised questions about the whereabouts of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ filings.

Concerns over the status of Mr Holness’ report are compounded by two things other than that he is the prime minister and is expected to lead from the front on these matters. It is now the second year in succession that the IC has not publicly issued a summary of Mr Holness’ report of his annual income, assets, and liabilities at the same time as the opposition leader’s. There has now been none for him for the years 2021 and 2022. That suggests that the Integrity Commission, for whatever reason, has had problems reconciling the prime minister’s documents.

Second, Mr Holness’ wife, Juliet Holness, is also a member of parliament and is required to make these statutory declarations. In the past, the Holnesses have done joint filings. If that has persisted, this problem of certification concerns not only a single MP, but two.

The issue is further complicated by Mrs Holness’ recent elevation to the speakership of the House. If the IC has a complaint and/or concern about the filings of an MP, other than something that requires direct legal intervention, it is to the PM and the Speaker that it makes those concerns known.

Against that backdrop, it is not sufficient for the information minister, Robert Morgan, to merely declare that the administration does not comment on matters related to the IC and to refer questions to the commission, knowing that the agency is barred by law from commenting on cases/investigations for which reports have not been tabled in Parliament.

BETTER APPROACH

As this newspaper suggested to the prime minister in April with respect to his 2021 declaration, the better approach would be for Mr Holness to explain to Jamaicans his understanding of why the commission has long delayed disclosing a summary of his declarations.

We said then: “The prime minister cannot help but be aware that the absence of clear information encourages speculation and innuendo, which hurts his reputation and encourages cynicism among Jamaicans about the island’s integrity regulations. That further corrodes the low levels of trust Jamaicans have for the institutions of the State.”

The Integrity Commission Act requires that all legislators and public servants earning over J$3 million file annual declarations of their income at its source; all assets, including investments; and their liabilities. They have up to three months after the end of the calendar year to complete these filings, which may be subjected to questions and requests for clarifications by the commission before they are certified but not necessarily audited. For the prime minister and the opposition leader, summaries of their filings are to be published in the Government’s Gazette, which the IC tends to reprint in the private press.

The last of these for the Holnesses covered the period January 1, 2020, to September 1, 2020 – the latter date being that of the last general election. The summary was gazetted in January 2022.

QUESTIONS ABOUT DELAYS

Since then, there have been questions about the delays in the public disclosure of the PM’s 2021 and 2022 declarations, with echoes of past delays.

The focus on the prime minister has been renewed with Sunday’s reprint in the press of a September 29 extraordinary edition of the Jamaica Gazette, with the summary of Mr Golding’s filing for 2022. It appeared to show that Mr Golding, who, outside of politics, is a corporate lawyer and investment banker, and his wife had income in 2022 of approximately J$169.1 million (J$70.68 million and US$444,658) and assets of around J$325 million, half (J$163 million) of which was denominated in Jamaican dollars, and the Goldings appeared to have almost no liabilities – less than J$2 million (US$11,000). They hold most of their wealth in US and Jamaican dollar securities – US$475,000 and J$105.5 million.

The publication of this information is not to satisfy people’s voyeuristic interests, but a pledge of honesty and accountability in a society with high levels of corruption and low levels of trust in politicians and the institutions of the State, which Mr Holness acknowledged during the 2017 debate of the Integrity Commission Act.

He said then: “There is no denying that whilst we have made significant strides as a politically independent country, we could have achieved much more were it not for corruption in many forms – revenue leakage due to corrupt practices, misuse of public funds, and the overall perception of pervasive corruption – all of which have served to compromise the flow of investment into our country.”

There is still a long way to go to overcome this real and perceived problem. While the law limits open wealth disclosure to the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition, Mr Holness believed that “disclosure should extend to all parliamentarians and also other public officials”. He hoped for this shortcoming to be remedied in two years.

Maybe these and other weaknesses in the law will be fixed in the current review. The gag on the IC speaking about its investigations and its handling of filings does not apply to people subject to its request for clarification. It would be in Mr Holness’ and the public’s interest if he explained what the sticking points are around his filings.