Rudolph Brown, Staff Photographer
David Panton, left, chats with Bruce Golding at the G2K seminar on corruption last Tuesday.The following is the presentation made by former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Member of Parliament and founder of the National Democratic Movement, Bruce Golding, in his contribution to the G2K's seminar on corruption held at the Hilton Kingston Hotel.
The issue of corruption has always lurked in the perception that the people have of politicians and public sector officers. In recent times, it has become the source of considerable public concern and anxiety. The Jamaican people may be willing to forgive incompetence, they're not so willing to forgive corruption.
I think the Opposition and Mr. Audley Shaw in particular, deserve to be commended for bringing to public attention, major instances of corruption in this Government. Has it brought you political mileage? No doubt it has, but that is neither to be begrudged nor deplored because it has to do with issues of fundamental importance which the public would not otherwise be made aware of.
But the fact that it is an international phenomenon provides us with no source of consolation. In the most recent corruption index published by transparency international, in which Jamaica was one of the countries surveyed, we scored 3.8 out of 10.
More recently, in January of this year, the World Bank published the Report on Governance indicators which ranks countries under different headings, one of which is the extent to which those countries are able to control corruption. In that report, Jamaica was ranked 75th of 176 countries, which means that we're not the worst of the bunch, but it does mean that corruption in Jamaica is alive and very well.
NARROW TERMS
There's a tendency in Jamaica to define corruption in very narrow terms. We think in terms of the contracts, the kickbacks; we think in terms of nepotism; we think in terms of overpayments that can't be explained. I'm here to suggest that corruption is much more than that. It involves the abuse of power to secure an advantage which can be for ourselves or for those who we favour. And that advantage can be financial, it can be personal or political. Sometimes it is quite innocuous.
For example when Mr. Huntley Medley who is employed as Press Secretary to the Press Minister, presents on radio on Sunday afternoon last, a paid broadcast by the People's National Party, it may be harmless but it is corruption.
When party hacks are appointed to public positions for which they are unqualified and unsuitable, that is corruption. When FINSAC debts are written off for some people but the same considerations are not applied to other people, that is corruption.
When constituencies are starved of resources because they happen to be represented by Opposition Members of Parliament, that is corruption. When public funds are used to build and maintain garrisons that are impervious to any competing political viewpoint, that is corruption. And when the security forces are used to terrorise entire communities, in the process killing women and children because of their political loyalties, in addition to being murder, that is corruption. When the Government deprives the people of North West St. James and South East St. Ann representation in Parliament, because they are fearful of the possibility of a repeat of what happened in North East St. Ann, that is corruption.
STRENGTHEN THE LAWS
In tackling corruption, there are some things that we must do. We must strengthen the laws where they are deficient, we must enact laws where they don't exist and we must enforce them where they do. We must institute and properly fund the mechanisms that will monitor, prevent and apprehend. And I want to mention a few.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), remains the only outstanding example of how the Westminster Parliamentary system was intended to work. But it is hampered because it has no decision making powers, it can take no action even if it uncovers irregularities. It can only report to Parliament - a report which is never debated and almost always ignored. So that in a sense, the Public Accounts Committee serves merely to amplify what the Auditor-General has already released.
Section 51 of the Constitution provides that each House of Parliament has the power to regulate its own proceedings and I believe that we should seriously consider amending the standing orders to give the Public Accounts Committee the power to formally refer matters to the relevant agencies with appropriate recommendations for disciplinary action including surcharge and dismissal. And secondly to give the PAC - without having to go back to Parliament to lay a report that will never be considered - give the PAC the power to refer matters that it feels needs to be dealt within that way, directly to the police for investigations and to the DPP for consideration.
We have the office of Contractor-General and Mr. Seaga must be credited for having established it when the JLP held office in the 1980s. I happen to have chaired the select committee that dealt with that legislation and prepared it for final passage through Parliament. But the Contractor-General is under-utilised and the powers that be are inadequate for the responsibilities that need to be discharged. He really is a pathologist; he examines the contracts after the corruption has taken place. I note that Mr. Seaga has proposed that the Contractor-General's imprimatur be required before contracts can be proceeded with. I agree with that but I think that we need to go further. I think that we need to require that interim reports of all contracts related to payment stages should be provided as a matter of course and as requirement to the Contractor-General.
Secondly - that the power be given to the Contractor-General which would have to be written in those contracts so that it cannot be a source of damage litigation - that it be written in those contracts that the Contractor-General has the power to freeze contracts if in his opinion the payments have been made are not commensurate with the work that has been done.
Thirdly, to give the Contractor-General the power to remove from the approved list of Government contractors, consultants and suppliers, anyone who he considers not to be a fit and proper person to carry out Government contracts. I make one more proposal related to this. We should amend the law relating to the contracts commission to require that all variations of escalation must have the approval of the contracts commission before any payment related to such variations can be approved.
I say that because from my own experience as Minister of Construction, if you're not careful, somebody tenders a job, the job is worth $4 million, he tenders $2 1/2 and by the time he's finished with his escalations and his variations he's at $10 million and that is where the sting is; and that is where much of the corruption is to be found.
We need to deal with the allocation of resources which is in my view one of the most blatant forms of corruption where entire constituencies/whole communities, can be deprived of resources because the Government of the day doesn't like their political persuasion.
Within the National Democratic Movement (NDM), we had proposed that a five per cent of the budget be set aside to be divided equally among all constituencies. Review the percentage if you will; review the mechanism if you must; but I believe it is absolutely important, for us to ensure that Government cannot - because of their own partisan bad-mindedness - condemn entire constituencies to deprivation for five years and more if the people allow them.
The issue of the public service cannot be ignored if you are employed to something called the Civil Service which has no fixed address. You report to a permanent secretary who has no power of discipline over you other than to send you on leave full pay.
The Civil Service was built on a structure that defies accountability and create enormous room for corruption. It allows everyone to pass the buck to the point where the buck can no longer be found. As Shaggy says "it wasn't me". I think we need to give permanent secretaries greater control including disciplinary powers over their staff and to hold them responsible for their performance and action of their staff.
I would like to see the Public Service Commission continuing to be responsible for qualifying persons for employment to the Civil Service, grading, classification and importantly, serving as an appeals tribunal in the event that somebody feels that he has been unjustly dealt with. I would like to see written in the terms of employment of every civil servant and in every contract of employment of persons employed in statutory agencies a provision that they will be held accountable for their decision and the instructions that they give. If you had that, the president of NIBJ could not be telling us about moving on, he would have to be telling us about moving out! We need to do much more.
Corruption has so destroyed people's confidence in their public institutions; so undermined their trust that plugging loopholes and tightening control mechanisms, will not be sufficient to rebuilt that trust and that confidence. We desperately need from those who will govern us, a covenant of governance that establishes standards by which those who exercise authority are to be judged and to which are held accountable and that must inform the mechanisms that are set up to enforce these standards
Importantly, those mechanisms must be insulated from the authority that are designed to monitor and to hold accountable. Some wonder why for example, ministers are not fired in the face of all that has been happening recently? The omissions and the transgression. But you know, some political leaders handle these conflicts better than others.
There are some who are not willing to cut the throats of others because there are fears that in doing so, they are slashing their own wrists and therefore they are prepared to compromise the public interest because their own political interests take precedent. I'd like to suggest that covenant of governance must rest on three pillars.
1. Transparency
2. Accountability and
3. The certainty of sanctions
The Access to Information Act does not satisfy the conditions of transparency. Like so many other initiatives that we have seen taken, it is designed to adorn the statutes; to be boasted about in international forums while leaving the public to operate on a need-to-know basis. It is a flawed piece of legislation and I must tell you that I'm surprised that the Opposition did not fight the passage through the House with the kind of vigour that, for example, we saw in relation to the attempts to remove the rights of appeal to the Privy Council. And at this stage, even though it has passed through the House, I believe it is something that every effort would be made to ensure that what they have there does not become law. If we are to create a culture of transparency and integrity, we must be prepared to lead by example. The Integrity Act was introduced by the Michael Manley Government in 1973. It has had no impact on either the perception or the reality of corruption. The recent Corruption Prevention Act (and just to give you an idea of how deep and strong the commitment is), it was passed in 2000, it is still not functional. But that Act is not likely to be any different in terms of its impact, from the Integrity Act. And this is so because it is defective in three important respects.
GIFTS
It has not addressed the question of gifts, its an issue that I raised before the Parliamentary committee that dealt with it, again I must express some disappointed that the Opposition members agreed with the Government side in terms of the proposition that I had made. What the law now says is related to some bribe. In other words, we have to establish that the policemen who got the BMWs, got them because of something that they were going to do in their official capacity. If you can't establish that, the BMWs are alright. So if somebody ends up with $100 million in his bank account, unless you can establish that it is related to a particular function that he was doing in his official capacity for which he was paid $100 million, it is fine. And I say it has to be addressed. It is in a folder into which a lot of corruption is going to put and you're not going to be able to do anything at all about it.
We had long proposed - and I speak for the NDM on this because it's a part of our manifesto - that the corruption prevention commission is not going to be able to function when you're dealing with submissions from 1,500 people. It is simply going to become a post office box and all that's going to be concerned about is whether an individual had submitted his declaration in time. We proposed the establishment of a prosecutor-general, independent authority who would investigate acts of corruption.
We need to consider requiring at least elected officials to make public declarations. I feel strongly about this. We cannot ask people to entrust us with power over their lives if we are unwilling to trust them with information about our own personal affairs.
The UK has gone part of the way; they require declaration of sources of income without spelling out the amount. Australia has gone all the way. In Australia, every MP has to declare his assets and income to the Parliament and once declared, it becomes a public document. The public can access it. I would be able to go on the Web site and view the declaration of assets of several MPs. It's important as part of that covenant of governance for us to be able to bare our hearts and souls to begin the process of rebuilding the confidence and trust that have been destroyed over several years because of some of what this seminar is called to examine.
PARTY FUNDING
Something else that has to be addressed is the question of the funding of political parties. This provides enormous scope for corruption. Very compelling reason to suspect that public funds are being siphoned in large quantities into the political party coffers in preparation for election campaign. There is strong and compelling reason to believe that is what is happening. We do not know how much the piper was paid but it is obvious in many instances who is calling the tune.
Strong argument can be made for the need to regulate financial contributions and to institute reporting requirements and sanctions. I believe a strong case can be made for limited state funds. Much of the legitimate activities that political parties have to do involves communicating ideas, informing the public, promoting your policies, public education - those represent a major cost factor in any campaign. But those are legitimate activities that I believe could be funded in part through state funding. But the quid pro quo for that is that we would have to now begin to regulate contributions to political parties; require reporting, determine to what extent it can be public without damaging the possibility of securing legitimate contributions.
These have to be addressed and we would not be breaking any new ground in terms of the Westminster system because in Canada right now they have long offered a 75 per cent tax credit for political donations. It is now considering some level of state funding but attached to that would be some level of political party reporting, annual returns and so on.
IMPEACHMENT
In the UK, very interestingly there is a report now that is being examined that does precisely what I'm suggesting. Impeachment is something again for which Mr. Seaga must be credited. Because much of what was agreed in the constitutional reform package was based on his input in terms of structuring and defining it. But I raised two concerns:
First it is stuck in the constitutional reform package which increasingly appears that it will never see the light of day - And the ability to impeach public officials is too important for us to allow it to remain languishing in the darkness. I'd like to suggest that if necessary, if it is going to take so long to become a reality - tied as it is to elements of constitutional reform, let's lift it out, let's enact the laws, let's put in place the provisions that would allow us to hold accountable and to punish those officials who it can be established, have been involved in acts of corruption.
The other concern I raised about the impeachment arrangement is that as it is structured, there's a parliamentary committee that has to first of all decide that there are grounds for impeachment which then sends it on to an impeachment tribunal of judges etc. But that committee has a majority of Government ministers in the person of the speaker which suggests that only opposition members will ever have to fear impeachment and that is not good enough.
Now I can't find any instance in any part of the world, where the power of impeachment doesn't reside within Parliament. But then Jamaica must be prepared to break new ground. And as unprecedented as it is, I think we should consider establishing a panel of eminent Jamaicans who would perform that function and determine whether a proper case of impeachment has been made out and if so to send it on to the impeachment court to be dealt with.
Finally it is often argued (and I've heard argument) that the way to ensure good governance is to elect good men and women. Nobody can defeat that argument. I don't hesitate to say that under Mr. Seaga's government, many of the things that are taking place today would not have been possible. I speak with some experience when I tell you that he was a constant source of irritation to some ministers. But I don't think that is good enough. I don't think that the Prime Minister can afford to be the chief security officer and chief inspector to see which employees are pilfering the company's goods. I think we must put in place systems that will ensure control and compliance.
To simply rely on electing good men/women, is placing an enormous burden on the average voter, because you're asking the average voter to read the hearts and minds of persons seeking the vote and to determine therein their intentions.
Up to a couple months ago, some of the brightest on Wall Street were telling people what a wonderful bunch of people those group at Enron were. You can't ask the voter to simply vote on: "Well him sound good an him mek some nice promises." Therefore we need to go beyond that. I suggest to you humbly and respectfully that you should not be naive enough to believe that there are not individuals within your ranks, that given the opportunity would be prepared to be corrupt. And again therefore, you need to look at systems.
There is a compelling need to put in place the systems that will uphold those who are honest, will dissuade those who may be tempted and will apprehend and punish those who are brazen. My views on this matter are well known. It is going to be extremely difficult to create these mechanisms within the present Parliamentary structure.
We lack the institutional infrastructure, the culture. We need to understand that corruption cannot exist without power. The more unbridled and unrestrained that power is, the greater the likelihood of corruption. The Opposition is committed to the present Parliamentary model, I don't agree with it but it is your view and it must be respected.
I think the Opposition owes it to the public, before the next election to outline how within that framework it will rearrange the existing order so that Government can be more transparent, more accountable and more effectively subjected to sanction. As I've said before, this country desperately needs a covenant of governance.
