PNP vows to reverse proposed removal of AG from Integrity Commission
Published:Friday | June 13, 2025 | 12:09 AM
The opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has slammed a proposal by government backbencher Everald Warmington to remove Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis from the the rank of commissioner at the Integrity Commission. The party said it would reverse the move if followed through and reinstate her should it form the next government.
In a strongly worded release, the PNP says it “unequivocally condemns the Government’s latest move to oust the auditor general as a commissioner of the Integrity Commission”.
The statement follows a majority position taken by government lawmakers on Wednesday to remove the auditor general as commissioner. The decision was made during a meeting of the Joint Select Committee reviewing the Integrity Commission Act. Two opposition members who were present at the meeting objected to the proposal.
A report will be prepared by the committee at the end of its deliberations and submitted to Parliament for debate.
Yesterday, committee member Senator Donna Scott Mottley added her voice to her dissenting colleagues on the issue.
“I have examined the situation carefully. I see no conflict of interest as has been put forward by some persons,” Scott Mottley said, adding that the auditor general does not audit anything to do with the Integrity Commission. “The IC is audited by independent auditors who carry out that function.”
NEW LEGISLATION
The Opposition says a future PNP administration would safeguard the country’s anti-corruption institutions, ensuring that they remain independent, fully resourced, and above political interference.
“We will introduce long-overdue legislation for unexplained wealth orders, another critical anti-corruption tool that this Government has reneged on, and amend the Constitution to enable the impeachment of delinquent parliamentarians,” the PNP statement said.
Auditors general have sat on Jamaica’s principal integrity oversight bodies for more than five decades.
Dismissing arguments by government lawmakers for the removal of the auditor general from this critical role as spurious, the Opposition said there is no constitutional or other impediment to having the Integrity Commission audited by an independent professional audit firm, a well-established practice utilised by various public-sector bodies.
“The synergistic benefits of the auditor general being a member of the Integrity Commission in the fight against corruption outweigh the contrived arguments to the contrary, which is why it is specifically provided for in the Integrity Commission Act passed under this administration.”
The Opposition called on the private sector, the Church, civil society, unions and all right-thinking Jamaicans to stand up and speak out against the systematic dismantling of the country’s democratic safeguards.