Integrity Commission faces many obstacles
Corruption in the political system is one of those evils that a cynical citizenry has apparently come to expect. But in an effort to at least appear transparent in its dealings, in 1994 government passed the Prevention of Corruption in Public Life Act. The legislation basically requires most elected officials to declare their income, assets and liabilities on an annual basis. An appointed body known as the Integrity Commission was established to receive the reports, verify the accuracy of the information, and investigate non-compliance or any other breeches of the act. But despite some initial cooperation, government records indicate that in recent years, a significant number of persons obliged to comply with the law, have simply not been doing so. And even more disappointing, is that the Integrity Commission has not done anything about it. News 5 understands that the last officially Gazetted list of persons who made declarations to the Integrity Commission was back in 2000, and that only included the submissions of George Price and Mark Espat. No wonder: the last meeting of the commission was held on February twenty-first, 2001. It’s a situation, apparently condoned by both parties, that’s been left to fester for far too long. This month, a new Integrity commission was appointed, and by their own admission, the members face a Herculean task. The commission is chaired by Christopher Coye, and includes as members: Canon Leroy Flowers, Alexis Fairweather, Barbara Ramos, Lionel Welch, James Murphy, and George Swift.
The newly appointed commission met for the first time in Belmopan on Wednesday and has already appointed a sub-committee to confront the work at hand. According to Coye, the preliminary findings are far from good.
Christopher Coye, Chairman, Integrity Commission
“The declarations that have been submitted and filed are actually way behind. It would be a monumental task, and it will be a monumental task for us to actually come up to date to bring everything up to date. I mean people haven?t filed for years. People that have been in public office and people that are no longer in public office, still had that responsibility to file. And I guess you would say that remains to be completed.”
So, who are the delinquent government officials who haven’t been complying with the law? According to the act, persons in public life are defined as: a) Members of the House of Representatives, including the Speaker; b) Members of the Senate, including the President; c) Members of local authorities, city councils and town councils.
The pool of people is substantial and of even greater importance is the information they must declare. The act speaks of full financial disclosure including all assets, income, and liabilities, details of government and private sector contracts, leases and grants of land, as well as full details of business interests. Even Coye admits that the process is complicated.
Christopher Coye
“Because it requires such detail, some persons have difficulty even completing the form. So what past commissions did, they would sit down and help certain persons to complete the forms. So, yes, it is not something that is just done in fifteen minutes, maybe for some it might be, but it overall requires close attention. I think we need, I wouldn?t want to say there?s any resistance, but it?s just that it is not an easy task to deal with, either on the commission side and the persons in public life side.”
But the obstacles of getting officials to comply and compiling the required information pales in comparison the task of actually reviewing and verifying the mountains of material. Given that the members of the Integrity Commission hold full time jobs of their own, the tradition has been that the bulk of the legwork is done by employees of the National Assembly. Chairman Coye says that will change during his three-year tenure, as the commission needs its own office and more money.
Christopher Coye
“The budget for the Commission, it’s rather small and there?s no permanent secretariat if you want to call it that, really. The assistance is really from the clerk of the National Assembly. We actually depend on them, and as far as budget is concerned, it?s effectively none, you know, for that permanent office. For us really to get a handle on what we need to do, and to discharge our duty, just on that component, on dealing with declarations, we do need a permanent office. We will need some level of staffing to handle it on a day to day basis.”
The Integrity Commission concedes the work ahead will be challenging and also reminds the public that added to its mandate is the enforcement of the Code of Conduct for government officials. In this regard, Chairman Coye says that despite the lack of resources, any complaint against persons in public office will be handled expeditiously.
