PNP scoffs at suggestion it leaked IC report

By Nakinskie Robinson   

 

The People's National Party (PNP) is dismissing a suggestion by Prime Minister Andrew Holness that it was involved in the leaking of an Integrity Commission report recently submitted to Parliament for tabling.

 

During a post-Cabinet press briefing on Tuesday, Prime Minister Holness suggested that the leak came from within the PNP, after the opposition had claimed the documents were shared with the media by way of Jmaica Labour Party members.

 

The leaked report is allegedly in relation to the Prime Minister's statutory declarations. The documents were sent to four officials of the Houses of Parliament, including Speaker Juliet Holness and Senate President Tom Tavares-Finson.

 

The situation has since sparked a political standoff between the opposition People's National Party and the governing Jamaica Labour Party.

 

Shadow Information Minister Nickeisha Burchell says the PNP was not privy to any information prior to the submission of the reports for tabling. 

 

"PNP did not have any early knowledge other than what the Integrity Commission made public to everyone. What is curious is that since those reports have not been tabled in the Parliament, how then can news outlets with political agendas be leaking aspects of these reports which were sent only to these three Jamaica Labour Party parliamentarians hearings and to the Clerk of the House."

 

"The Integrity Commission has been conducting this investigation for months, years even, and no leaks, but the minute it was sent to the three JLP parliamentarians, it has been leaked to their supporters and their allies in the media. This, for us, is a dark day in history. It's a dark day for democracy," she asserted. 

 

When asked about comments made by General Secretary, Dr. Dayton Campbell in the media last week that the reports would soon be tabled, Ms. Burchell chalked this up to speculation. 

 

"That's something we have been saying. It's no secret that the Prime Minister and seven other parliamentarians, believed to be Jamaica Labour Party parliamentarians, have been under investigation by the Integrity Commission for years. We don't expect that this would take 50 million years to be complete. So when the General Secretary said that the report would come soon, that anybody's guess. That's up to deductive reasoning," she argued. 

 

After reports are sent from the Integrity Commission to copied officials, they are made public at the time of tabling in the lower house.