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Jagdeo admits to failing to declare assets to Integrity Commission
Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo
Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, is among the large group of public officers, including Members of Parliament, who have not declared their assets to the Integrity Commission as mandated by law.
Jagdeo was questioned by Kaieteur News yesterday about whether he and other MPs of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) had made their declaration which was past due.
Jagdeo admitted that he had not filed with the Commission.
“We will get it done because it is something that we believe in. When we were in office, we made sure that every Minister did up to 2014,” Jagdeo stated.
Jagdeo fixated his response on whether the Government members had declared their assets.
“You just ask the other side if they have done. They have not done so for three years so I hope that the Integrity Commission goes back to the starting point,” Jagdeo stated.
Last week, the Commission disclosed that 1296 letters were sent to public officers who are mandated to file their declarations with the Commission on or before June 30, each year.
To date, the Commission has received 248 responses and only some MPs have responded. The response rate at the time was 19%.
Jagdeo expressed the view that the Commission should also examine previous years, including the three years dating back to 2015 when the Coalition Government came to power.
The Commission’s Chairman, Kumar Doraisami, has indicated that the Commissioners favour moving forward. He said that there is a legal debate surrounding the existence of the Commission prior to the life of the current one, which was sworn in by President David Granger in February after a decade without a chairperson.
Under the law, any public officer who fails to comply with the Commission is liable upon summary conviction, to a fine of $25,000 and to imprisonment for a period of not less than six months or more than one year.
Public officers including the President, Permanent Secretaries, Director of Public Prosecutions, Auditor General, Commissioner of Police, the Army Chief, Heads of the Service Commissions, Foreign Affairs officials, Judges and Magistrates and Department Heads are required to declare their assets.
Also required to submit declaration forms of their earnings and gifts received are Regional Executive Officers, the Chief Elections Officer, Mayors, Chairpersons and Chief Executive Officers of state companies, Registrars of Lands and the Commissioner-General of Guyana Revenue Authority, along with Presidential Advisors, and Heads of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and Guyana Forestry Commission.
Public officers are also required to operate within the Integrity Commission (Amendment of the Code of Conduct) Order 2017, which addresses, frontally, matters relating to discrimination, bribes, conflict of interest, handling of classified information, use of public property and sexual misconduct, among others.
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