A mere five days before its November 15 deadline the Integrity Commission had received only around 50% of the 1,300 financial declarations which persons in public life are required to submit.
“We had our meeting last week and then we had just about 50% of the submission. The deadline hadn’t passed yet so we haven’t decided what’s next. Now that the deadline has passed we have to now go and tally up and see who complied and who didn’t,” Commission Chair Kumar Doraisami told Stabroek News on Monday.
He explained that the next meeting of the Commission is scheduled for the second week of December. During this meeting a decision about whether to publish the names of non-compliant officials or take any other action will be made.
Stabroek News had previously reported that the Commission was likely to discuss at its November meeting how it could complete the task of verifying the declarations since there is currently only one investigator on staff and no money to hire more. It has since been decided to prioritize for now those submissions received from Members of Parliament (MPs).
Doraisami, a former magistrate, noted that the commission had previously found inconsistencies in submissions from MPs some of which were corrected once highlighted. He however lamented that some MPs failed to respond to correspondence from the commission highlighting inconsistencies and therefore the Commis-sion is hoping to be able to prosecute such persons.
This prosecution like other aspects of the Commission’s work is stymied by a lack of funding. Currently there are no prosecutors on staff when at least two are required. There is also only one investigator when at least five are required.
“We have one [investigator] right now but need at least 5, since over 1,300 declarations have to be verified… We also need prosecutors – at least two, and we don’t have enough money but I understand it was an emergency budget,” the chair had told this newspaper in a previous interview.
The Commission has been allocated a subvention of $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 and at one point blamed its financial situation on a failure to publicly identify those who had failed to comply with the legislation and make submissions.
One of those persons who was eventually identified to the public was President David Granger who failed to make submission in 2018 and 2019. He has submitted his 2020 declarations.
“Yes he did comply. He complied eventually,” Doraisami said of the former President.
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.
These declarations are expected to give full, true and complete particulars of the assets and liabilities and the income during a period of twelve months immediately prior to the relevant date of the person filing the declaration.
Also expected is information on the assets of the spouse and children of the public official.
The Integrity Commis-sion Act states that those officials 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 non-disclosure, 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.”
