'Make them pay'
Published:Monday | November 22, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Golding: MPs must open their books or face jail
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
In a pinpoint jab at Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Bruce Golding yesterday called for charges to be laid against members of parliament who have refused to make financial declarations to the Integrity Commission.
Golding, who yesterday addressed a bumper crowd at the 67th annual conference of the JLP, said he was prepared to make public all his assets.
Golding, who is also the prime minister, told the energised Labourites that he would not dare tell the DPP how to do her work, but added that those who break the law should be made to pay.
"There are seven parliamentarians who have been reported, referred to the director of public prosecutions for having failed to comply with the integrity requirements for parliamentarians," Golding told fired-up Labourites.
"We can't tell the director of public prosecutions how to do her job. She is an independent authority, but I am saying that if the man who steals a mango or the man who steals a bicycle is prosecuted and has to account for his crime, then those parliamentarians who have flouted the law, they must also be called to account," Golding added.
Sitting MPs Michael Peart and Dr Omar Davies are among the seven MPs the Integrity Commission says have failed to file annual returns as required by law. The list is completed by former MPs Ralston Anson, Victor Cummings, Errol Ennis, Dr Neil McGill and Verna Parchment.
Davies told The Gleaner yesterday that he was taken to court but the DPP did not proceed against him as he had submitted twice in one calendar year.
Persons who fail to make declarations to the commission, or who make false declarations, could be fined $10,000 and/or be thrown behind bars for two years.
Deliberate non-disclosure of a parliamentarian's property may also lead to forfeiture by the Crown.
Davies and Peart have said the Integrity Commission had made an "unprecedented decision" which required that a sitting MP who was re-elected file two reports - the first as at the end of the last calendar year and the second as at the date of the general election.
Yesterday, Golding said the actions of the opposition MPs were an example of the hypocrisy across the political landscape and pointed to what he described as an insistence by the People's National Party that people who contribute to political parties must be made public.
"That is something that we are prepared to enter into a discussion with them on, but it is a kind of hypocrisy if you are demanding that those who contribute to political parties must have their names disclosed when we, the politicians, our integrity declarations are kept in secret," Golding said.
He added: "If we are going to call for public disclosure of contributions, we must be prepared to publish our own integrity declaration of income and assets and liability.
"I am prepared to publish mine tomorrow. As a matter of fact, I don't need any law to do it because there is nothing that I own that I have anything to be concerned about. We have to make sure that when people in our position break the law, they are made to pay the consequences," Golding said.