Two of the three councillors from the St. Catherine Municipal Corporation who were charged with failure to file statutory declarations were each fined $250,000 when they appeared in the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Court on Monday.
The People's National Party's Vanrick Preddie from the Hellshire Division and the PNP's Dwight Burke, who represents the Sligoville Division, were fined after they pleaded guilty.
Jamaica Labour Party's councillor for the Twickenham Park Division, Donovan Guy, pleaded not guilty to four counts of failure to submit a statutory declaration.
Mr. Guy's attorney, Donahue Martin, who received disclosure, sought an adjournment to take additional instructions from his client.
The councillor is to return to court on October 14.
Acting Director of Corruption Prosecution at the Integrity Commission, Roneiph Lawrence, ruled last month that the three councillors should be charged for failure to file statutory declarations.
The breach falls under Section 43(1)(a) of the Integrity Commission Act.
Mr. Burke was cited for failing to submit his statutory declaration for 2022 by the due date. Mr. Guy allegedly failed to do so over a four-year period from 2019 to 2022 and Mr. Preddie for the years 2019, 2021 and 2022.
The IC's Director of Investigations, Kevon Stephenson in his report said the councillors failed to provide reasonable cause for not filing their declarations on time.
Mr. Stephenson said all were given the opportunity to discharge liability and by paying the fixed penalty and submitting the outstanding statutory declarations.
But there was only partial compliance as while the required statutory declarations were eventually submitted, the councillors failed to pay the fixed penalty. Therefore, Mr. Stephenson said they were found to have failed to discharge their liabilities consistent with Section 43(3) of the Integrity Commission Act.
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