Kristen Gyles | Just as bad

A few years ago, before the 2020 general election, two pollsters opined that Jamaica’s high perception of corruption would not play a significant role in swinging voters either towards the green side of the spectrum or towards the orange. They theorised that we have got so used to hearing about corruption and watching both parties point fingers at each other that corruption now feels like a way of life. How do we hold one party to account for poor governance, corruption and rule-breaking when the other party is just as bad?

Last week, there were two eye-opening developments in the public space that demonstrated clearly that neither of the two political parties have a clue about what good governance looks like.

First, a government minister actually admitted in Parliament that he has advised members of parliament not to divulge to the Integrity Commission (IC) information about their spouses or children’s finances. For context, each year many public sector workers are required to file statutory declarations to the IC. In addition to a standardised form that must be filled out, supporting documents including bank statements and/or bank letters must be submitted. Again, this is nothing unique to government ministers or members of parliament (MPs), but is something many public servants have been required to do for years.

What on earth was the minister thinking, then, suggesting that members of parliament of all people, who, more than any other group of public servants, have direct access to public funds, should not divulge this information which has been required of so many public servants annually for years now?

DOUBLED DOWN

As if the necessity of said information being provided by politicians isn’t plain enough, many have tried to alert the minister to the problem with his statements. Instead of backtracking, he has doubled down using the classic ‘bait and switch’ approach politicians love, of making some controversial utterance only to later pretend they meant something other than exactly what was said. According to him, people cannot declare information they do not have. Not a very profound discovery. But the contention was never that people should become clairvoyant in order to supply the IC with information that they genuinely do not have. The point was that the IC is well within its right to request this information from public servants who handle public funds, contrary to his initial statements.

For anyone who is confused, one of the most common tactics among those who pocket or otherwise misappropriate public funds is to enlist the help of close relatives by transferring some or all of their loot to the relatives’ bank accounts for safekeeping until the money is fit to either be consumed or ‘washed’. An MP, for example, who knows they are under the scrutiny of the IC could very easily, under the minister’s proposed state of affairs, transfer any ill-gotten gain to a son, daughter or spouse and retrieve it again after statutory declarations for the year in question have been filed. The minister could not possibly be unaware of this.

It is troubling that he would be advising MPs to flout a longstanding requirement of a public body but even more troubling that he would feel comfortable admitting to doing so. The truth is, until members of his party came under question, these ‘concerns’ about the operations and general requirements of the IC were non-existent. So why now? It seems the government has only now taken issue with the requirements of the IC because it has become so desperate in recent times to bolster its attack on the IC.

What can be said of a government that tries to neuter one of the few public agencies tasked with combating corruption?

As if that whole ordeal wasn’t concerning enough, at around the same time, news emerged that a longstanding member of the People’s National Party (PNP) and former constituency caretaker had been removed as the party’s representative to make way for another candidate.

OFFERED $15 MILLION

The man said prior to his removal, he had been offered $15 million, a Senate seat and a board appointment to a government agency in exchange for his backing away from the caretaker position. As the PNP loves to say, “What can go so?”

After the party denied these claims and gave the appearance that the man had fabricated the story out of thin air, the general secretary for the party admitted that discussions were in fact held with the man regarding the possibility of appointment to the board of a government agency as well as a Senate appointment, but not regarding the payment of $15 million.

As is customary, of course, the general secretary doubled down in the face of criticism. He says he can’t see how such a discussion could be something untoward.

Ever wondered why some government agencies struggle to fulfil their mandates, lack any sense of direction and underperform perennially? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ‘Jamdung’ where many are appointed to public service not based on skill or merit but political affiliation. Do these same political leaders who shift around party members wantonly across public agencies as though the business of the Jamaican public is a joke, have to personally conduct business in these agencies which are subject to the poor governance and oversight structures they set up?

Appointing political supporters to leadership roles across the public sector may help to strengthen the bonds of friendship or allegiance between party loyalists but will do absolutely nothing to strengthen governance in the public sector. But this is well known. Perhaps the latter is really not the objective.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com