Samuda rages at ‘stale news’ after Mombasa grass scolding

Stung by criticism that he was “ethically reprehensible”, senior government minister Karl Samuda has ridiculed the Integrity Commission after it condemned him for benefiting unduly from the cultivation of 14.2 acres of Mombasa grass by the Jamaica Dairy Development Board (JDDC) on his property in Knollis, St Catherine.

The JDDC planted the Mombasa grass on Samuda’s property in April 2017 when he held the portfolio of minister of industry, commerce, agriculture and fisheries.

The Integrity Commission, which carried out a probe into the implementation of projects by the JDDC and the agriculture ministry, noted in its report, however, that Samuda’s action did not rise to the level of criminal conduct.

Contacted by The Gleaner Wednesday evening, an infuriated Samuda tore into the anti-corruption body, describing the report as a “disgrace”.

“That is the most reprehensible piece of garbage that I have ever seen. It is abject garbage,” Samuda said.

The government MP took aim at the commission, charging that the report was “full of falsehoods and redundant”.

He said at the time that the occurrence took place, he made a fulsome statement to Parliament with documentary evidence.

“I went to the chairman of the Integrity Commission with my lawyer and gave a full report and we heard nothing of it; we had no case to answer and now six years later … ,” Samuda said.

He said the claims were proven to be “nonsense, full of allegations brought by a member of parliament who the people have already dealt with”.

Samuda charged that they have gone to dig up the roots of the plants on the sea floor.

“It is unwarranted, it is baseless, it is laughable.

“They are not there to investigate; they are there to dig up any little stale news that they can try to manoeuvre into a report,” he said.

Director of Investigations Kevon Stephenson said that given Samuda’s current position in Cabinet and as a member of parliament, the commission is recommending that Prime Minister Andrew Holness and House Speaker Marisa Dalrymple Philibert “take such action as may be necessary and sufficient to acknowledge this and assure the public that such conduct is unacceptable”.

Stephenson also recommended that government ministers be instructed to desist from accepting personal benefits from programmes implemented by agencies for which they have ministerial responsibility or otherwise.

He charged that the acceptance of such benefits creates an actual conflict of interest that undermines public trust in the fair and objective operation of agencies of the Government.

Further, Stephenson is pushing for the introduction of legislation to prohibit the acceptance of benefits from resources over which a government minister or other public official has charge.

He proposed that such restriction should be accompanied by pecuniary and/or punitive sanctions to deter this practice and that offenders be punished.

Discussing his conclusions, Stephenson said that Byron Lawrence, then chief technical director and project coordinator of the Dairy Sector Revitalisation Project, and Samuda entered into a verbal agreement for the JDDC to establish a demonstration plot of Mombasa grass on the minister’s property in Knollis under the entity’s Forage Intervention Programme.

Stephenson noted that the establishment of a 14.2-acre plot of Mombasa grass by the JDDB “clearly constituted a personal benefit to him”.

He said that the implications “were not mitigated by the justifications provided by neither Lawrence nor the minister”.

The director also pointed out that the JDDB failed to provide information regarding the process of selecting candidates to receive assistance in the form of Mombasa grass seeds.

“The JDDB’s management of the Forage Intervention Programme was antithetical to the principles of transparency and the responsible allocation of public resources,” Stephenson said.

Stephenson also concluded that the sum of $546,000.00, which Lawrence indicated was the aggregate value of the work executed by the JDDB on Samuda’s property, was not inclusive of the cost of the Mombasa grass seeds.

The commission, however, said that there was no evidence at this time to support a finding that the cultivation amounted to an offence under Section 14 of the Corruption Prevention Act.