Public Service Is A Privilege Not A Right, Give The Info To Integrity Commission Or Step Aside.…

Our Mission: To com­bat cor­rup­tion through the devel­op­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, and enforce­ment of Anti-Corruption leg­is­la­tion, pol­i­cy, and ini­tia­tives, through our high­ly com­pe­tent staff and effi­cient sys­tems, process­es, and procedures.
Our Vision The region­al lead­ers in Anti-Corruption pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive frame­work devel­op­ment;  enforce­ment; and gal­va­niz­ing part­ners towards real­iz­ing and sus­tain­ing a cor­rupt-free soci­ety for cit­i­zens, res­i­dents, and visitors.

So says the integri­ty Commission of Jamaica.

The Integrity Commission, like oth­er agen­cies of Government, are Acts of the Jamaican Parliament.

The Integrity Commission is a Commission of Parliament, which is gov­erned under the Integrity Commission Act, 2017 (ICA). The ICA effec­tive­ly merged the oper­a­tions of the fol­low­ing entities:

1. the for­mer Office of the Contractor General, which had the pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty of ensur­ing that Government pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures and the issuance of Government licens­es and per­mits were free of impro­pri­ety and irregularity;
2. the for­mer Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, to which Public Officials were required to file their income, asset, and lia­bil­i­ty state­ments annu­al­ly; and
3. the for­mer Integrity Commission (Parliamentary), to which Parliamentarians were required to file their income, asset, and lia­bil­i­ty state­ments annu­al­ly. ‘(Commission’s website).

Like the INDECOM Act was cob­bled togeth­er because of the bad behav­ior of police offi­cers, the Integrity Act came into being because of the cor­rup­tion of pub­lic offi­cials, includ­ing parliamentarians.
I don’t think that any­one would dis­agree that the Police need­ed over­sight or that the politi­cians need­ed to have a body that has the author­i­ty to see how they han­dle pub­lic mon­ey in particular.
In the same way that the police and mil­i­tary neces­si­tat­ed the for­ma­tion of INDECOM, oth­er pub­lic sec­tor agen­cies made the integri­ty com­mis­sion necessary.
Unfortunately for the tax­pay­ing pub­lic, cor­rup­tion and graft have result­ed in a bloat­ed bureau­cra­cy that sucks up monies that ought to have gone to edu­cat­ing the youth and car­ing for the elderly.

It should come as no sur­prise that gap­ing loop­holes were left in the way the Integrity com­mis­sion Act was writ­ten; why would cor­rupt politi­cians write a law cov­er­ing all bases?
It should also come as no sur­prise that some of the peo­ple in the most sen­si­tive posi­tions in the gov­ern­ment are now opposed to demands by the Integrity Commission in a new vol­un­tary dec­la­ra­tion form issued by the commission.
A notice of motion for amend­ments to the declara­to­ry form was issued to Parliament on March 20. One senior mem­ber of the gov­ern­ment described the form as quote “repug­nant.” Hahaha.….
In the same way that police offi­cers could oper­ate with­out any­one look­ing over their shoul­ders at every­thing they do, if only they car­ried them­selves with dis­tinc­tion and oper­at­ed with­in the bounds of the laws, politi­cians and oth­er pub­lic sec­tor work­ers could also have avoid­ed this intrusion.
It was politi­cians in par­tic­u­lar who siphoned off bil­lions of tax­pay­ers dol­lars and avoid­ed prison time that caused low­er-rung gov­ern­ment work­ers to believe pub­lic ser­vice was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to enrich themselves.

The Integrity Commission’s Director of Information and Complaints, Craig Beresford, said the form is being intro­duced because a large num­ber of dec­la­ra­tion forms are incor­rect and have infor­ma­tion gaps. “It was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to ensure that their dec­la­ra­tions are accurate.”
“We are giv­ing peo­ple an oppor­tu­ni­ty to go back and look. We have not looked to see if you have left off things; that’s not the start­ing point. Over the years, we have been get­ting dec­la­ra­tions where all we get is sig­na­tures, not even infor­ma­tion,” he stressed. “The rea­son why we have now intro­duced that new form let­ter ask­ing per­sons to revise your statu­to­ry dec­la­ra­tions is because we are find­ing that a lot of them are inac­cu­rate. We are not try­ing to entrap anyone.
The “we are not try­ing to trap any­one” com­ment came after Government Minister Pearnel Charles Jnr argued that” if the let­ter were not received by all pub­lic ser­vants there would be rea­son for those who received it to ensure that they get nec­es­sary legal advice to ensure that they don’t place them­selves in a posi­tion that could amount to entrapment.
Public sec­tor work­ers in devel­oped coun­tries are forced to under­go rig­or­ous back­ground checks even before enter­ing pub­lic ser­vice; addi­tion­al­ly, they must main­tain a record of cir­cum­spec­tion reviewed annually.
Even as I per­son­al­ly call for greater clar­i­ty in how laws are writ­ten, let it be under­stood that no pub­lic-sec­tor work­er should feel him or her­self above scruti­ny. The teeth in the new demands are exact­ly what is needed.
Those hol­ler­ing the loud­est at this new demand for account­abil­i­ty should look at their own con­duct and that of their peers. Imagine sign­ing a dec­la­ra­tion with­out fill­ing in the required infor­ma­tion demand­ed by law?
“A hit pig hollers,” those hol­ler­ing the loud­est may be the ones who need to fill out the damn ques­tion­naire and not just add their signature.
If you do not like the heat, get out of the kitchen. Get out; you do not have a right to be in pub­lic ser­vice; it is a priv­i­lege, it is that simple.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.