(Jamaica Observer) Contractor General, Greg Christie has welcomed the Government’s commitment to pass legislation to rationalize Jamaica’s institutional arrangements for fighting corruption, by bringing them under a single anti-corruption umbrella. The commitment was given on Thursday, during Governor General Sir Patrick Allen’s throne speech in Parliament.
In a release to the media Christie hailed the move.
“Although the details of what the Agency will look like are yet to be disclosed, the OCG, nevertheless, believes that the Portia Simpson-Miller Administration must be commended for the bold and decisive step that it has taken to come to grips, once and for all, with Jamaica’s pervasive corruption problem”, Christie said..
he said Jamaica has been consistently ranked by Transparency International (TI), the international anti-corruption watchdog, as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
“For the past ten (10) years, it has never scored higher than 4.0 on TI’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), where a score of 10 is perceived to be least corrupt and one as most corrupt,” he said.
Christie has been championing the cause, since March 2010, to consolidate the functions of the Integrity Commission, the Corruption Prevention Commission and the OCG, and to vest in that Agency the mandate, among other things, to criminally investigate and to independently prosecute all corruption and related criminal offences.
