Manning’s ghost

Yesterday’s Newsday reported that though former Prime Minister Patrick Manning died in July 2016, it would seem he is still being investigated by the commission.

Manning has long passed on to the afterlife, but the complaints relating to him and the construction of the Lighthouse of Our Lord Jesus Christ church in Guanapo apparently live on.

Do not get us wrong. We understand the need for resolution, for the record’s sake, of an issue as important as this. Here was the Udecott spectre that befell the nation: a prime minister oversaw the transfer of State lands to a woman purported to be his spiritual adviser, called in Calder Hart and asked that a State agency to build a church on this land.

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard SC said there was no basis to proceed with charges, in a statement that confirmed the extent of Manning’s personal involvement in the project.

The DPP cited old age and ill health as two factors that led to his decision not to initiate charges against the former PNM prime minister.

But where during Manning’s life the DPP saw no reason to proceed, the commission sees matters of worth even after death. And to a large extent it should.

It may well be that the ambit of such a probe also includes other public officials, notwithstanding the nominal identification of just one on the complaints. In such a scenario, the commission would be duty-bound to continue its examinations to bring such people to justice.

But even if this is not the case, it can be argued that there is a moral basis on which to continue. The nation should get answers, once and for all, on a matter that involved the most powerful office of the land, a billion-dollar State enterprise, and the handing over of State resources to private hands for private gain.

Yet why has this matter, pending since 2010, not been resolved? What the current situation confirms is this: our institutions, and the Integrity Commission in particular, are dismally dysfunctional.

Put another way, they are ghosts of their former selves.

It is precisely because the matters relating to Guanapo were so important, so historical, so germane to the public interest that they should have been resolved long ago. The State should never have found itself in a position where it must probe a crucial matter such as this in the absence of the main protagonist.

That protagonist is today in no position to respond to questions or charges, unless the tools at the commission’s disposal are so powerful as to be able to go beyond the grave.

Will investigators be conducting a seance? Will another “spiritual adviser” be roped in to open a channel to Manning? And will Manning have the benefit of legal counsel in these ethereal interviews? Commission chairman Zainool Hosein said that of the 41 complaints dealt with by the commission in 2016, 15 were completed and one was referred to the DPP.

This was a complaint against the Government about bid rigging and corruption relative to the services offered by a contractor. Hosein added there are currently 13 matters that the commission has referred to the DPP.

This leads to the next issue. Does the Office of the DPP have adequate resources to deal with matters referred to it by the commission? In a situation where the murder rate is high, should there not be a special unit of the DPP’s Office charged with handling complex, white-collar crime? But the more obvious question is what is the point of the commission probing a matter which the DPP has already viewed as not worthy of charges? Does the commission hope to unearth fresh evidence that will change the DPP’s mind? Resurrect the matter from the dead? Seven years later and counting, we are none the wiser. But one thing is sure: our confidence in the State’s ability to probe corruption cases has long died.