November 14 2018
The Integrity Commission will be taking legal action against Members of Parliament, (MP) and other state officials that have failed to declare their assets in keeping with the law.
The names of 87 public officials who failed to declare their assets in keeping with the legal prescriptions of the Integrity commission Act, have been published in the Guyana Chronicle and in the Official Gazette.
The list identified among the defaulters 41 Members of Parliament (MPs), including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge; Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan; Minister of Social Cohesion with responsibility for Culture, Youth & Sport Dr. George Norton; Minister of Public Health Volda A. Lawrence; Minister of State Joseph Harmon; Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix; Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry; and Minister within the Ministry of Social Protection, Keith Scott, M.P.
From the Opposition side, the Integrity Commission named, Attorney at law, Mohabir A. Nandlall, Priya D. Manickchand, Dr. Frank Anthony and Pauline Campbell-SukhaI.
Besides the MPs, the Commission also identified the Speaker of the National Assembly Dr. Barton Scotland; Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock E. Isaacs; and Deputy Clerk of National Assembly Permanent Secretaries among those being in default.
Chairman of the Commission, Kumar Doraiswami, had disclosed that it had written to public officers, including Members of Parliament (MPs) to have them declare their assets.
According to official attached to the Commission a total of 1296 letters were dispatched to those who are mandated to file their declarations with the Commission on or before June 30, each year.
To date, the Commission has received 248 responses and only some MPs have responded. The response rate thus far is 19 per cent.
With hundreds of public officers still to declare their assets to the Integrity Commission, Doraiswami said the only step left to take now by the Commission is legal action.
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 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 one 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.
