IC report left cloud of confusion, says Chuck

By Nakinskie Robinson   

 

Member of the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee Delroy Chuck says the Commission's recent report has left a cloud of confusion on several matters involving Prime Minister Andrew Holness' financial affairs.

 

During a meeting on Tuesday, where two opposition members brought a motion requesting that the committee support the referral for the Financial Investigations Division to further probe Prime Minister Holness' statutory declarations, Mr. Chuck questioned the finality of the Commission's report and its handling of the investigation. 

 

"After three years, it had, during that period, done 3,800 investigation of transaction, investigated, according to it, 28 bank accounts. In addition, it reports that it had an international expert for six months, and what you have here is a report that has not implicated the Prime Minister in any material way. What this report has done is to leave nothing but speculation from page one to page 171. It has come to no conclusion, and because it has failed to come to any conclusion, it is now asking for the FID and the TAJ to assist it," Mr. Chuck contended, before telling committee chairman Edmund Bartlett that he cannot support the motion brought by the opposition members.

 

Mr. Chuck also questioned why the Integrity Commission did not consult the FID before sending the report to Parliament. 

 

"What is before us, a submission to Parliament, it came clearly as a final report. It didn't come as an interim report. So what is this recommendation or request that we should refer to the FID and TAJ (Tax Administration Jamaica)? The IC, Integrity Commission, has an MOU with FID from 2021, and it could easily have contacted the FID and asked the FID for information. Why is it submitting a report now and then asking us to recommend to the FID? And before it submitted this report, why didn't it engage the FID, which within its mandate it can do?" 

 

The FID has said it is reviewing the Commission's report but has not started an investigation.