UN committee wants more steps against corruption
Concerned that the institutional framework to combat corruption is not yet sufficiently strong and effective, the UN Human Rights Committee (CCPR) yesterday called on Guyana to take a raft of measures including protection of whistleblowers.
Guyana came under intense questioning on March 18-20 on its periodic report by the Geneva, Switzerland-based committee on the Convention on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR).
In its concluding observations yesterday, the Committee said that it took note of the adoption of several laws and regulations by the State party to combat corruption, along with measures such as the creation of a Special Organized Crime Unit for investigating financial crimes. However, the Committee said it remains concerned that the institutional framework to combat corruption is “not yet sufficiently strong and effective in practice to adequately prevent or prosecute corruption, including in the police force and of high-level public officials”. For example, the Committee said it is concerned about reports that: (a) the Commissioner of Information does not address all requests from the public; and (b) the Protected Disclosures and Witness Protection Act has not yet entered into force.
The Guyana Government yesterday said that it submitted corrections and comments to the Committee’s concluding observations but that these were not included in the document issued. It disseminated what it said it had forwarded to the committee for inclusion in the concluding observations.
The Committee said that the State party should expand its efforts to adopt and implement, efficient, and prompt measures to promote good governance and battle corruption and impunity at all levels of government. In this respect, the Committee urges the State party to:
Adopt concrete measures to address the root causes of corruption as a matter of priority;
Ensure that all corruption cases, including cases of those involved in highlevel corruption and corruption in police force, are independently and impartially investigated and prosecuted, and that perpetrators, if convicted, are sanctioned with penalties commensurate with the seriousness of the offence, and that victims receive full reparation;
Take the measures necessary to ensure, in practice, the independence,
effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of all anti-corruption bodies, including the Auditor’s General Office, the Commissioner of Information, the Integrity Commission, and the Public Procurement Commission;
Ensure that the right of access to information held
by Commissioner of Information can be effectively exercised in practice;
Effectively protect whistle-blowers
and witnesses through, inter alia, expediting the entry into force of Protected Disclosures and
Witness Protection Act. In its response in this