Warmington apologises for accusing Bartlett of encouraging wrongdoing

South West St Catherine Member of Parliament, Everald Warmington, has apologised for suggesting that Chairman of the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee, Edmund Bartlett, is encouraging wrongdoing in his conduct of the committee.

During the July 25 sitting of the committee, Warmington had raised questions about Director of Corruption Prevention, Ryan Evans, who he claimed was an advisor to former People's National Party President, Dr Peter Phillips.

Bartlett instructed Warmington not to pursue that line of questioning, which led to a heated exchange and Warmington walking out of the sitting.

As the committee resumed its sitting on Tuesday afternoon, Warmington offered an apology to Bartlett for his behaviour and sought to clarify his statements.

“In the public it is being said that I referred to you as corrupt, which I never did. I made a statement on my way out through the door and at no time did I direct…say anything directing to you as being corrupt.

"I've known you for many years and I've never seen any part of you or any action that you have taken that is corrupt. So at no time did I refer to you as being corrupt, and that's something, Mr Chairman, I would never do,” Warmington stated.

"I regret that it is felt and interpreted that way in the public, but I could never have referred to you, Mr Chairman as being corrupt and I am sorry for any inconvenience I might have caused you," he added.

Bartlett said he accepted the apology, but made it clear there should be no recurrence of such outbursts.

“I didn't ask for an apology, but I think an explanation, such as you have given will suffice, because I think that the public had a very unfavourable response to that exchange and it is my hope that we will never be ever in that position again where there is even a misinterpretation of what our true intentions were either as a result of our verbal expression or our body language,” Bartlett said.

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