SETTING THE EXAMPLE

Feb 01, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

There was one question that would have saved a great deal of the President’s and the reporters’ time at the last Presidential Press Conference. That question was unfortunately not asked and what we have is a long drone about the need for Members of Parliament to comply with the law.

The fact that the legality of legislation is being challenged does not mean that the law should not be observed. This in essence is the escape the President sought in defending his intemperate outburst at a previous press conference in which responding to the opposition’s demand for him to subject his ministers to a forensic audit of their assets, the President said that he would ask the Integrity Commission to, within two weeks, publish the names of all those Members of Parliament who have not submitted their declarations to the commission.

The main opposition has since indicated that it had advised its members not to submit any. Why should they? If the position of the opposition is that the Integrity Commission is not properly constituted, then how can opposition Members of Parliament be expected to submit their declarations of assets and liabilities to a body that it deems to be illegal.

The question of compliance with the law does not arise because the very law which creates the obligation to submit is being questioned to the extent that the agency to which the declarations have to be submitted is being challenged as being unlawful.

What happens if the opposition does comply with the law and then later find that the Courts rule that the Commission was unlawful? This would mean that the Commission would not have been the properly constituted body to receive declarations. How can the opposition then comply with the law when they consider the agency to which they have to comply as being unlawful and a subject of a legal challenge?

The President indicated at his press conference that he is moving to have consultations on the Commission. He did not state whether this was in respect to only the Chairman or in relation to all the members. The law simply states that there must be consultation, not agreement. However, we have long passed the stage of cosmetic consultations and therefore the consultations are expected to be meaningful.

I urge the opposition leader not to simply see this matter in terms of who was originally right. I urge the President to use his proposed consultation to end the controversy over the Integrity Commission and to restore public confidence in the work of that body by reconstituting the body after meaningful consultations with the opposition as laid out in the law.

In the meantime, the opposition and the media should not allow themselves to be distracted. They should not allow themselves to be caught up in political diversion. And this is why the reporters should have asked the President a simple question at his last press conference.

They should have asked him regardless of who has submitted declarations whether he is prepared to subject the declared assets of his ministers to a forensic audit. I hope that the next time the reporters meet with the President that they put this question to him: Is he willing to have the assets of his ministers subject to a forensic audit?

He may say that this is a matter for the Integrity Commission. But since he did not feel that the issue of those Members of Parliament who have not submitted their declarations was not solely for the Commission, since he felt that he had a right to issue an ultimatum, he should agree that it is within his powers to have a forensic audit of the assets of his ministers.

He does not need the Integrity Commission to do this. He simply needs to call in the experts and say to them that he wants to show the world how transparent his government is, and thus he is asking all his ministers to subject themselves to a forensic audit of their assets.

We have to stop wasting time in this country with unnecessary political drama. The President should insist that his ministers set a higher example than others, and what better way to set this example than to have an independent international team of auditors come to Guyana to examine the assets of Ministers of the Government?

I do not believe this has been done anywhere else in the world and therefore we will be setting a historic example, one that is unprecedented, by having a forensic audit of the assets of Government Ministers.

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SETTING THE EXAMPLE

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