Chuck calls for Integrity Commission illicit enrichment reports

Justice Minister Delroy Chuck is urging the Integrity Commission to deliver its reports of investigations into the six parliamentarians and 28 public officials who are being probed for illicit enrichment.

At a meeting of the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee of Parliament earlier this afternoon, Chuck argued that the anti-corruption body has been given the requisite financial resources to deliver more effectively on its mandate of fighting corruption.

The committee met to review four reports sent by the commission relating to four employees of Petrojam who breached the Integrity Commission law by not submitting their statutory declarations.

“For me, it was a bit of disappointment when I sat in Parliament waiting for these four reports to come because the Integrity Commission released a press release to say that four reports are coming and will be tabled,” he said.

“To have these four reports just about not filing statutory declarations to my mind was like a squib,” he added.

According to Chuck, many lawmakers believed the reports “had to do with the illicit six”.

Chuck said, “We need to hear from the Integrity Commission” whether the matters involving the six parliamentarians and the 28 public officials being investigated for illicit enrichment have been cleared up."

He insisted that if they have not been cleared up the commission should report on them as soon as possible.

“It shouldn't be too difficult for the IC to demand responses from whoever those six persons are and what is interesting no one seems to know who those six persons are and report to Parliament as soon as possible.”

The justice minister said it should not take the commission a year to complete its probe into the six parliamentarians and 28 public officials who allegedly violated the law.

However, following the meeting of the parliamentary committee, four fresh investigative reports with indicative rulings from the director of corruption prosecution were submitted this afternoon to Parliament by the commission.

In its news release, the Integrity Commission said it anticipates that its reports which were submitted in conformance with Section 54 of the Integrity Commission law will be tabled in both houses of parliament as soon as possible.

In his comments during the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee meeting, Chuck indicated that the commission has been allocated $1.5 billion this financial year to carry out its mandate.

“We want the IC to succeed and success must be measured in how well the country is doing in stamping out corruption,” he said.

According to Chuck, an indicator of success in the fight against corruption was the rating the country received on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

In January this year, Jamaica improved one place in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index country rankings.

However, the country remains the fourth most corrupt state in the Caribbean.

Jamaica scored 44 on the CPI with a ranking of 69 out of 180 countries.

“It would be nice if the Integrity Commission could find ways and means to show how we are stamping out corruption, what measures are being used to stamp out corruption because the present 44 is below 50,” he said.

- Edmond Campbell

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