SORRY SAGA OF INTEGRITY

The PNM was awarded the tied 2001 general elections through “moral and spiritual values” and then won the 2002 elections citing alleged UNC corruption. Yet 1999 was the last year for which any public official listed their assets. After the NAR Government’s 1987 Integrity Act was deemed weak and replaced by the UNC’s Integrity Act 2000, the relevant Regulations and Prescribed Forms to effect the Act were never passed by Parliament. They were laid by UNC attorney-general Ramesh Maharaj, but lapsed when the UNC Government collapsed. Some MPs tried to file declarations using the old forms but these were rejected by the Integrity Commission. After two years in office, in breach of the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, the PNM Government has failed to effect the Integrity Act 2000 and the work of the Integrity Commission by its repeated delays to bring this enabling legislation to Parliament. Most recently, on October 31 in the House of Representatives, the Government at the last minute radically changed its motion on the order paper. Instead of voting on whether to adopt the Regulations and Prescribed Forms, the Government sent them to a parliamentary joint select committee (JSC) for scrutiny, amid Opposition protests. The Senate on November 4 duly followed the Lower House’s lead. The JSC is due to report back to Parliament by December 1, the day after November 30, the extended deadline to file declarations. Alleging delaying tactics, the Opposition protested that for a third year, the Government and its State Board appointees would escape declaring their assets. The PNM Government’s actions contrasted to their statements while in Opposition.

Praising the then UNC Government’s Integrity Act 2000, PNM Opposition chief whip Ken Valley had said: “We do have legislation covering the conduct of public officials to an extent to which we can be justifiably proud.” PNM Diego Martin East MP Colm Imbert had said: “...it has been recognised that MPs must declare their assetts...” The PNM Government has been less than transparent in the Integrity issue, seemingly given a runaround to lay the forms and regulations.
The Integrity in Public Life Act 2000 (like its  1987 predecessor), itself birthed by the National Constitution s.138, sets up the Integrity Commission and empowers it to establish Regulations and Prescribed Forms for select State officials to declare their interests. TT National Constitution, s.138 (1) states: “There shall be an Integrity Commission for Trinidad and Tobago ... (2) The Commission shall be charged with the duty of (a) receiving from time to time, declarations in writing of the assets, liabilities and income of members of the House of Representatives, Ministers of Government, Parliamentary Secretaries, Permanent Secretaries and Chief Technical Officers; The Integrity Act prohibits Ministers from misusing insider information (s.25); influence-peddling (s. 26); accepting an unauthorised “fee, gift, or personal benefit” in connection with their ministerial duties (s. 27) and any “conflict of interest” (s. 29). The Act lets members of the public tell the Commission of alleged corruption by officials, widely empowers the Commission to investigate including examining Ministers under oath, and lets it judge the consistency/veracity of the declarations made. Moreso, the Act suggests it is the Integrity Commission, not the AG, who is responsible for determining the declaration forms. Integrity Act 2000 s.41 (1):“The Commission may make Regulations prescribing (d) the form of declaration to be submitted and any additional forms which have been prescribed or which may become necessary.”

The forms say the Integrity Commission can order the seizure of the assets of any State official governed by the Integrity Act 2000 which are not properly declared under the Act. An errant official is also liable to a penalty of ten years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Further, the Schedule empowers the Integrity Commission to judge whether it believes a declarant’s claims, especially if it does not believe his declared income can actually support his declared assets. Earlier this year,  public frustration at the lack of action on integrity was directed at the Integrity Commission, mistakenly. Several newspaper editorials had severely criticised the Integrity Commission for its apparent non-functioning. but in August 2003 chairman Justice des Iles countered by revealing that he had written three times to Prime Minister Manning to complain about the non-implementation of enabling legislation but had been ignored. After three months, des Iles had merely received a reply from a junior clerk in the Office of the Prime Minister off-handedly saying the matter was receiving the PM’s attention. Soon after, back-peddalling on the PNM’s stance when in Opposition, Manning on August 14 at a post cabinet media conference said that upon “mature reflection” he was having “second thoughts” and felt the “net was being cast too wide.” Chairmen of State companies would resign, he moaned, claiming to have been told so by one unnamed chairman. There was reportedly widespread opposition to the requirement that officials’ spouses had to declare their assetts too.

At the November 7 post-Cabinet media conference, Manning gave mixed signals, still insisting the net was cast to wide, but trying to assure that his ministers would all eventually declare their assetts when the forms were ready. He said: “We are committed to it. We are not running from anything. We have nothing to hide.” All this led the Opposition to say he was  blowing hot and cold on corruption. AG Morean got herself  in a tangle of inconsistent explanations. Her critics link this to her recent removal as AG. On July 5 Morean told the Senate that the Integrity Commission was to be “re-engineered,” “restructured” or “replaced by a new Anti-Corruption Commission.” On August 10 she confused the issue by denying any plan to scrap the Integrity Commission. By August 14 she was saying Cabinet had agreed to “beef up” the Integrity Commision to “transform” it into the “State institution” charged with leading the national strategy against corruption. She also caused confusion on the same date by stating that the forms had not been available to her before January or February 2003, but this contradicted Integrity Commission chairman Justice Gerard desIles and former attorney general Ramesh Maharaj, the latter who recalled laying the forms in Parliament in 2001. An angry Maharaj had hit Morean’s plan to alter the Integrity Commission saying this was an excuse not to lay the Forms in Parliament to let the Commission investigate suspect officials. Accusing the Government of betraying the population, Maharaj said: “Since December 2001 the PNM Government has spent $30 billion with allegations of corruption.

The new Integrity Commission has wide powers to prevent ministers suddenly getting rich, to declare the assets of themselves and their spouses, to have wide powers to investigate the bank accounts and dealings of ministers, to prevent conflicts of interest by ministers and influence peddling. But the action of the Government is for ministers not to have to declare their assetts. Since the PNM took office no one has declared their assetts. The Integrity Commission is obstructed. If a Cabinet is permitted, under the guise of revising regulations or forms or considering replacing the Integrity Commission, to suspend the operation of laws passed by Parliament to investigate ministerial corruption and other official corruption then the Cabinet is placing itself above the Constitution and above the law...Democracy and the rule of law are in jeopardy. Dictatorship and tyranny will step in.” The Government’s recent shafting of the Forms and Regulations to the JSC, brought angry reactions. Ramesh Maharaj remarked: “The Government owes a duty to the people to satisfy people that they don’t have taxpayers money in their bank accounts. When you are going up for public life to handle taxpayers’ money, you have a duty to have openness, transparency and accountability. If you obstruct that openess and don’t want your bank account to be looked at and don’t want the Integrity Commission, the only inference I can draw is that you have ulterior motives.”     

Kamla Persad-Bissessar said: “The Government must now state that they will amend the law to make filing of these declarations retroactive to cover the three year period.” Despite $30 billion spent by Government, she said, for a third year public officials were escaping the scrutiny of the Integrity Commission. The Opposition, she said, is seeking a court order, a mandamus, forcing the Government to lay the enabling legislation. Former NAR Minister of Agriculture Lincoln Myers recalled his 40-day anti-corruption fast on the steps of the Halls of Justice in the 1980s, and said: “The whole situation has worsened in the intervening years. Integrity has taken a plunge. The country is simply too corrupt. We will not solve crime unless we have proper accountability and transparency to bring people guilty of malfeasance to justice.” On November 7 in a Cabinet reshuffle, Morean was removed as Attorney General, and appointed High Commissioner to the UK. But whether the forms and regulations will be laid remains to be seen.