Integrity Commission looks to widen list of officials declaring assets - aims to include SARA, SOCU, high-ranking police officers -Chairman says entity has no Investigators

Integrity Commission looks to widen list of officials declaring assets — aims to include SARA, SOCU, high-ranking police officers -Chairman says entity has no Investigators

Feb 21, 2019 News

The Integrity Commission is seeking to widen the list of public officials who would be required to declare their assets.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Chairman of the Integrity Commission, Kumar Doraisami told reporters that the agency is seeking to enlarge its schedule to include a number of other agencies and public officials. He said that the entity will be making recommendations to the Prime Minister to ensure that the list is expanded.
According to Doraisami, the new schedule will include the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Divisional Commanders, Assistant Commissioners, Traffic Chief and Crime Chief of each division.
Doraisami noted too that officials from State Assets Recovery Assets (SARA), the Special Organised Crime Unit, (SOCU) the Financial Intelligence Unit, (FIU) as well as staff of Commercial and Deeds registries will also be included in that list.
“These are people in positions who can be susceptible somehow to people approaching them, and we have heard all kinds of validations,” Doraisami added.
He explained further that the new list was initially left out of the schedule, since some of these organizations; SOCU, SARA and FIU were not in place, when the law which guides the Commission was established.
Giving an update on the effectiveness of the Integrity Commission, the Chairman noted that a total of 590 public officials have submitted their d

Chairman of the Integrity Commission, Kumar Duraisami

eclarations.
According to the official, the Commission has sent out over 1,000 forms for public officials to declare their assets. He noted, nonetheless, that 716 public officials are still to make declarations.
“Some people don’t want to take us seriously, but we are saying to public officers, it is in their interest to make these declarations,” the Chairman said.
According to the Integrity Commission Act, “If a public officer fails, without reasonable cause, to file a declaration with the Commission within the specified time or files an incomplete or false declaration, that person shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of $20,000 and to imprisonment for a term of not less than six months or more than one year.”
Similar penalties apply to public officers who fail to comply with a request made by the Commission, or a tribunal.

Where the offence involves the non-disclosure by the public officer of property, which should have been disclosed in the declaration, a Magistrate convicting the person shall order the public officer to make full disclosure of the property within a given time.
Failure to comply with the order of the Magistrate within a given time, the offence shall be deemed to be a continuing offence and the person shall be liable to a further fine of $10,000 for each day on which the offence continues.
As it relates to unaccounted wealth, the court will impose a fine equivalent to one and a half times the value of the property or pecuniary resource found to be in the possession of the public officer.
Every person in public life who receives a gift worth more than $10,000 must declare it to the Commission stating the name and address of the donor, the description and approximate value of such gift and whether, in the opinion of the recipient, the gift is a personal gift or a State gift.
Since its establishment a year ago, the Commission has published five lists naming public officials who have failed to declare their assets. The next list under consideration by the Commission includes officials of the Ministry of Finance and the judiciary.