The Integrity Commission should apply all penalties available

Jul 31, 2019 Editorial

Some senior public servants continue to thumb their noses at the requirements of the Integrity Commission, through failure to file timely asset declarations. Now the Integrity Commission must move with alacrity to initiate the process for levying of the penalties available. In view of the sloth, seeming contempt, with which the demands of the Commission have been treated, this is not an option, but a duty to utilise all available penalties.
In Guyana, there is too much talking. It is time to stop that futile exercise, and demonstrate that this is serious business and that the Integrity Commission means business. There are provisions in the law to take care of current resisters, and to send an unambiguous message to those thinking of doing the same in the future.
It is one thing for the Integrity Commission to be understanding and accommodating, as circumstances warrant; on the other hand, when that becomes the norm, then the purpose of its presence is defeated, or at least diluted, maybe rendered inconsequential. The time has come to put an end to the continuing kindnesses.
The Commission must move to have the acutely tardy imprisoned, as sanctioned by the law. Office and country would get by without them for a year. Those dropping their pants on the Commission must have legal hammers dropped on them. Let there be a stopping to this going around and around like an airport carousel not delivering bags to the waiting.
Moreover, any sane citizen has to take issue with those paltry penalties enshrined in the law. They are so meagre, as to be meaningless. Twenty-five thousand dollars (Guyana) is spare change handed over at traffic lights or outside religious houses to the homeless. This means absolutely nothing to public service swindlers. Twenty-five thousand (US), on the other hand, will make people pause and think hard about playing games with the Commission. It is enough of a fraction of their plunder to encourage haste in the timely submission of declarations.
The Commission must be willing to stand as gatekeeper and timekeeper, and ethics officer and headmaster of this country. If not taken this seriously and this comprehensively (by the agency itself) and watchfully and fearfully (by the concealing and stonewalling), then it runs the risk of being like a new car on one of those hydraulic lifts in a gas station: admiring and promising, but suspended and unable to help itself get anywhere.
For their part, public servants – men and women, senior and supposedly sophisticated – have to set an example, the right one, for others, whether on the job, or further afield. Otherwise, the Commission must fulfill its mandate. It has at its disposal some of the required tools and teeth. It has to make full use of them. Unless it does so, two things are guaranteed to happen.
First, this society will keep talking and lamenting about corruption for the next hundred years, while being stuck in the same highly expensive place. That is, where vast amounts of money from the treasury keep finding their criminal way into private pockets.
While all this rapaciousness is going on, a largely ignorant populace (a smiling, supporting one) is responsible for paying the accumulated debt burden. It is those tax deductions that leave a huge gap in spending power. It is neither free money being stolen, nor abstractions in textbooks. By willful political nonchalance, citizens are really cheating themselves and families.
A second thing is sure to occur, if the Commission continues to be reactive; it has to cease being so passive and sluggish in delivering of its sensitive obligations. If not, there is the increasing risk that this crucial watchdog agency can end up being an example of standup comedy; or a running joke. That would be tragic. It can be a real potent force in the anti-corruption fight; but only if its leaders and agents are determined to be aggressive, and scrupulously so.

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