Opposition to delay Integrity Act forms?

With just two weeks to the deadline for public officials to declare their personal integrity, the Opposition is doing an apparent about-face which looks likely to lead to yet a further delay in the filing of declaration forms to the Integrity Commission. This was the impression garnered by Sunday Newsday in an interview yesterday with Opposition Senator Wade Mark. Last December the Opposition had in Parliament vociferously accused the Government of delaying the parliamentary approval of the declaration forms and regulations which effect the Integrity in Public Life Act 2000. Since then the Integrity Commission has extended the time to file from the statutory May deadline to August 15.

But Mark yesterday told Sunday Newsday that the Opposition was at this stage seeking a meeting with the Integrity Commission whose professionals could guide them through what he called this “complex” issue. Mark initially said this meeting might require the Opposition to seek another extension to the deadline to file, but when admonished by Sunday Newsday he then declared: “We will meet our deadline.” The forms have been in the public domain since first laid in Parliament by former attorney-general, Ramesh Maharaj, under the then UNC government. The forms lapsed upon the collapse of the UNC regime, and it took the new PNM Government some 18 months in office before they brought back the forms — unchanged — to Parliament. Meanwhile Mark confirmed that the Integrity Commission had sent out the declaration forms.