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Audit Office questions integrity of Integrity Commission
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
The Integrity Commission was set up to ensure that public officials act in a manner befitting their office, but the Office of the Auditor General is questioning the financial integrity of that Commission.
In his 2015 report, Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, stated that there have been grave irregularities and the misappropriation of funds at the currently headless Integrity Commission.
“Prior to the year 2008, improper record keeping, irregularities and misappropriation of funds resulted in a suspense account in the sum of $1.469M being opened in the statement of financial position as at 31st December 2008.”
Six years later, Sharma said that the irregularities are still to be corrected. Further, he stated that “a movement to this account was done as at 31 December 2014 by a reduction in the sum of $699,207.
This movement has not been justified with any evidence or basis for the reduction in the suspense account.”
Accountants refer to a suspense account as an account in which items are entered temporarily into the books of an organisation before allocation to the correct or final account.
President David Granger recently said that the Integrity Commission is likely to become fully functional by the end of this year.
The President disclosed that government is creating functional laws and organisational structures to enable the Integrity Commission to function effectively in discharging its mandate.
Granger had said that what was inherited from the former People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration is “unworkable.”
He said that there has to be tightening of the legislation to ensure that those who are found guilty of illegal acts while in public office are prosecuted.
Auditor General, Deodat Sharma
The President told reporters that, under the previous administration, the Integrity Commission was a “poorly funded, poorly administered [and] dysfunctional organisation.”
President Granger likened the functioning of the Integrity Commission in the past to that of a post office, where persons submitted their returns but no action was taken.
“There was a perception that the PPP was using the Integrity Commission as a means, rather than (of) preventing corruption, of checking people’s personal finances,” said the President.
The Integrity Commission Act was assented to on the 24th September 1997. It provides for the establishment of the Integrity Commission, and makes provisions for the purpose of securing the integrity of persons in public life.
The Act also provides for the appointment of a Chairman to head the Commission, not less than two (2) and not more than four (4) other members of the Commission, a Secretary to oversee the day-to-day work of the Commission, and other officers for the proper functioning of the Commission.
The Chairman should be a person who is or was qualified to be a Puisne Judge of the High Court, or any other fit and proper person; and the other members should appear to the President as having experience and showing capacity in law, public administration, social service, finance or accountancy or any other discipline.
The Chairman and other members are appointed by the President after consultation with the opposition.
Public Officers and positions listed under Schedule 1 of the Commission’s Act should disclose their financial assets and liabilities on or before June 30, each year. When a public officer ceases to be a person in public life, he or she should disclose his or her assets and liabilities to the Commission within thirty days from the date that individual ceases to be a person in public life, the legislation states.
In the past, the functioning of the Integrity Commission has been a controversial issue, though the previous administration had sworn in members in 1999, the Commission’s Chairman, Bishop Randolph George, resigned in 2006, and the commission has since been headless.
While in Opposition, the APNU-AFC coalition had promised to appoint an independent Integrity Commission as a matter of priority.
It vowed that the Chairman and members of the Commission would be persons of good repute.
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