Harmon says “gov’t tackling corruption,” Jagdeo says gov’t lost right to speak on corruption
Minister of State Joseph Harmon says the coalition government met the country in a corrupt state, however, Opposition Leader Bharat Jagdeo argued that the government lost all right to speak on the issue of Corruption.
During his presentation on Budget 2016 in the National Assembly today, Minister Harmon stated that “Corruption eats away at the moral fabric of a society…this is the ranking we found when the APNU+AFC government came into office. The Transparency International Index for 2006- out of 166 countries, Guyana was at 121, in 2007; it was 123, in 2008, it was 126…in 2012, it was 133, 2013; 136, 2014; 124”
He noted that this was reduced to 119 in 2015 and is “going down” noting that the government is working to put measures in place to decrease corruption and encourage foreign investors to enter the economy.
He said “We trust that the measure we put in place will solve this perception and provide a quality of public service which can make us proud and say to all that we are a country serious about doing business.”
Speaking immediately after Harmon was Opposition Leader; Bharat Jagdeo who told the house that the coalition government has lost all moral to speak about corruption after voting down the Motion tabled by the PPP in the National Assembly to have Members of Parliament declare their assets to the Integrity Commission and file their income tax returns for the last ten years.
He told the house that “the members on the other side lost all moral to speak about corruption when they vote against the motion that we presented to this parliament to have the past ten years of tax records of the members of this parliament made public and would have seen the submission to the integrity commission.”
According to the Transparency International Corruption Index, corruption is defined as comprising illegal activities, which are deliberately hidden and only come to light through scandals, investigations or prosecutions.
A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).