Integrity Commission going forward

An editorial in the April 5, 2018 edition of Stabroek News had expressed the hope that if all went according to plan the Integrity Commission would hold public officials to standards consistent with the assurances they had given in their oaths to serve the Guyanese public.

Its Chair, former Land Court judge Kumar Doraisami had been appointed just months earlier and this appointment had come after the Commission had languished for a nearly a decade under PPP/C governments without a chair.

More than 30 months later, the Commission unfortunately continues to function below what is expected of it and can hardly be considered a deterrent to those public officials who come within its scope and who have no intentions of complying with the Integrity Commission Act.

In an interview with Stabroek News last week, Mr Doraisami lamented the financial incapacity of the Commission. He stated that the Commission will be meeting this week to begin compiling lists of public officers who have failed to submit the annual financial declaration. There are in excess of 1300 declarations to be made and the Commission is pondering how it can verify these as it has only one investigator and no money to hire more.

The Commission has been provided with $42 million for the execution of its duties during 2020. This is $3 million less than the $45 million provided in 2019 and 2018. During each of these years the Commission had also complained of insufficient funds.

Mr Doraisami, however, remains hopeful that the 2021 budget will bring the Commission the funds it needs to fulfil its tasks. He is also hoping that the Commission can soon be added to the list of constitutional agencies whose budgets are directly approved by the National Assembly.

It is safe to say that since Mr Doraisami’s appointment the Integrity Commission has failed to have the type of impact expected. No less than former President Granger had been at one point in contravention of the deadline for the submission of returns. Dozens of public officers have not been compliant during the period and the Commission appeared loathe to publish the names of offenders and to take other steps to ensure full adherence with the Act.

Where public officials preside over good governance institutions that do not function properly, those persons also become part of the problem. It is left to be seen what steps the Integrity Commission takes for the rest of the year to discharge its responsibility. Thereafter, it will be

for the PPP/C government to demonstrate its commitment to integrity in public life by ensuring that the Commission is properly financed and elevated to the status of a constitutional commission.

This is vitally important considering the advent of the oil and gas industry and the attendant large sums which will be swilling about and enticing public officials. It is also crucial in an environment which has been shorn of a moral commitment to principled behaviour and where the ability and will to investigate corruption hardly registers.

A code of conduct was belatedly grafted on to the Integrity Commission Act by the APNU+AFC government in 2017 and provides a starting point for an evaluation of the conduct of public officials. It would be interesting to see how the Commission and the PPP/C administration evaluate the conduct of Member of Parliament and Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond against that Code of Conduct. Her narrative of her renunciation of her American citizenship is quite at odds with the documentation she has since furnished Parliament Office. As we have stated before, President Ali erred in offering her a parliamentary role considering she was a dual citizen, she should have declined the offer and now more than ever she should do the right thing and resign from Parliament given the documentation now in the possession of the Clerk of the National Assembly.

The Commonwealth’s Model Act on Integrity in Public Life contains one code for the Head of Government and ministers and another relating to non-ministerial public officials given their different responsibilities. While he presently does not come under the schedule of the Integrity Commission it would be interesting to see how questions surrounding conflict of interest pertaining to former PNCR MP James Bond are handled. Were he still a Member of Parliament his annual return would have been significant in evaluating the transaction with state holding company, NICIL that he was alleged to be have been involved in.

The Commonwealth Model Act, which the authorities here should look at, also sets out broad functions for the Integrity Commission and insulates it from any direction as is presently case with the Guyana Elections Commission.

The Model Act says that the functions of the Commission are (1):(a) to promote and enforce the integrity and accountability of public officials;

(b) to identify areas of public duty in which significant conflict of interest issues are likely to arise;

(c) to devise and keep up to date guidelines on conflict of interest for the conduct of public officials;

(d) to advise public officials on the application of this Act, the Codes of Conduct and the guidelines;

(e) to administer the signature and retention of signed Codes of Conduct and declarations of interest …;

(f) to investigate a complaint from any source that a public official has committed an offence …or is acting or may be about to act in a way that constitutes such an offence, and to communicate to the appropriate authorities the results of any such investigation;

(g) where in the opinion of the Commission the circumstances so warrant, to report specifically on, and make recommendations as to, any investigation undertaken…

(2) In exercising its functions the Commission is not subject to the direction or control of any person.

Guyana’s extant Act mandates that every person who is a person in public life, not being a member of the Commission, is required to file a declaration every year on or before June 30th and in cases where such persons cease to be a person in public life, within 30 days from the date on which the person ceases to be a person in public life.

It further says “A declaration under subsection (I) or (2) shall give full, true and complete particulars of the assets and liabilities as on the relevant date, and the income during a period of twelve months immediately prior to the relevant date, of the person filling the declaration (whether the assets were held by that person in his own name or in the name of any other person) and of the spouse and children of such person to the extent to which such person has knowledge of the same”.

Those who fail to submit their declarations or submit declarations that are false or incomplete shall be liable, on summary conviction, to “a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars and to imprisonment for a term of not less than six months nor more than one year, and where the offence involves the nondisclosure, by the declarant, of property, which should have been disclosed in the declaration, the magistrate convicting the person shall order the person to make full disclosure of the property within a given time and on failure to comply with the order of the magistrate within the given time, the said offence shall be deemed to be a continuing offence and the person shall be liable to a further fine of ten thousand dollars for each day on which the offence continues.”

While the Act can do with updating, it provides the basis for holding public officials accountable but it still however requires a Commission with the means and will to accomplish this.