Failure on integrity

BECAUSE of our determination to expose corruption wherever it occurs, particularly in the public service, we have been been strongly critical of the non-performance of the Integrity Commission. We have accused the Commission of failing to perform its constitutional mandate to ensure that integrity is maintained in the upper echelons of the administration and the government, including Cabinet ministers. We are now alarmed to learn that the hands of the Commission have been virtually tied since September 2001 because the forms for public officials to declare their assets have not been laid in Parliament. We find this omission quite scandalous, particularly since we have been attacking the impotence of the Commission not knowing that, in truth, they were helpless to do anything.

Now that the term of the Commission has ended and he is no longer chairman, Justice Gerard des Iles is free to explain the handicaps under which he laboured. His story is disturbing. He revealed to Newsday that he had written to Prime Minister Patrick Manning three times earlier this year, asking him to have the declaration forms, which were ready since September 2001, laid in Parliament as required by the Integrity in Public Life Act 2000. Des Isles said he received no response from the Prime Minister nor from his Permanent Secretary to whom he had spoken on the telephone. The only reply he got came in the form of a letter from a junior secretary, three or four months later, informing him that his three letters were receiving the attention of the Prime Minister. The former Integrity Commission chairman described this failure by the Government as "a breach of the law as it stood."

As the head of a government which boasts of its commitment to upholding standards of integrity in public life, we expect Mr Manning to tell the country why he has permitted the Commission to lapse into such impotence. Whatever new ideas he might have about dealing with corruption in government and about replacing the Commission with another body, that can be no excuse for him to ignore or overlook the demands of the law. The Prime Minister must be consistent on this crucial issue. He cannot proclaim to the world that his government is basing "our new society on integrity" and then refuse to take the necessary action aimed at ensuring that integrity is maintained in his own government. Mr Manning must also be reminded that, whatever his feelings about the Commission, his party, while in Oppositon, had given full support to the new Integrity Act. In fact, the PM now opens himself up to the kind of charge levelled by former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj who said the failure to have the forms approved by Parliament "provides cogent and compelling evidence that the Manning administration does not want the Integrity Commission to function." Mr Maharaj, who produced the Integrity Act while he was AG, is now seeking, through an action in court, to compel the government to enforce the Act. He says the administation's lack of response to des Isles brings into question whether the country would ever have the benefit of an Integrity Act.

It seems to us that the Prime Minister is also engaging in a fanciful idea when he talks about replacing the Integrity Commission with another anti-corruption body. The possibility of gaining the support of the Opposition for such a change, having regard to the UNC's non-cooperative stand, seems remote indeed. In practical terms, the Integrity Commission is what we have unanimously put in place and, to the extent that it serves as a deterrent or watchdog with respect to high public officers and their operations we must ensure that it is able to fully perform its functions. The Prime Minister must explain why he has stymied the Commission by failing to act on Mr Des Isles appeals.