Integrity Commission seeking to have statutes amended

─ to wane corruption in most unlikely places

─ received 248 Declarations so far  

DPI, Guyana, Thursday, October 4, 2018

The newly reconstituted Integrity Commission says it will be putting forward recommendations to have sections of the Act amended to eliminate corruption within society.

Since its installation in February of this year, the Commission which is chaired by former Land Court judge, Kumar Doraisami has received some 248 Declarations from public officials.

Doraisami said the vision of the Commission is to improve public confidence in the integrity of persons holding public office.

Office of the Integrity Commission at Church Road, Subryanville, Georgetown.

Chairman of the Integrity Commission, Attorney Kumar Doraisami [centre] with Commissioner Rosemary Benjamin-Noble [left] and Secretary Amanda Jaisingh.

“The objective is to secure the integrity of those persons through their compliance with the provisions of the Integrity Commission Act. The relevant persons will be required to fill out their declaration forms to the period specified in the Act. The Commission will receive and examine the Declarations and retain them in confidence,” he told the media at a press conference.

Addressing the Act and the proposed amendments, Doraisami said in the first schedule, only the Commissioner of Police and the Deputy Commissioner of Police are required to declare their assets and liabilities.

“We find that only putting the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner as people who will have to declare [to be narrow], we will actually recommend that we go further down into the police force, looking at the Traffic Chief, the Divisional Commander, because sometimes the actions are really down the line,” Doraisami said.

The same recommendation will be put forward for the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). Doraisami said the managers in the outlying areas should also be required to make declarations.

“We have to have the schedule amended to see if we can cover a broad spectrum of the areas where the corruption is likely to occur.”

While the Commission was sworn in February this year, Doraisami said it was only recently that it was able to acquire its own office building at Church Road, Subryanville, Georgetown. He explained that the Commission has already set up its organizational chart and will start employing persons to carry out its mandate.

Alexis Rodney.

Image: Keno George.