MPs must declare financial status - Thwaites

MEMBER OF Parliament for Central Kingston Ronald Thwaites has supported a call for parliamentarians and public officials voluntarily to declare their financial status ahead of the general elections due by December 2002.

"I intend to do so personally, because I have had my own difficulties and I think that it should be done," Mr. Thwaites told The Gleaner yesterday. In 1997, Mr. Thwaites' financially-troubled coffee company, Jablum, received financial support from the Government through its bail-out entity, the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC).

The Member of Parliament, who has been appointed acting chairman of Region Three of the People's National Party (PNP), said he would also be putting the matter on the table for the Region to debate.

Earlier this week, the Patriots, a group of young professionals of the PNP, called on MPs and public officials to disclose the extent of their indebtedness. According to the group's spokesman Donovan Nelson, the Patriots would be drafting a resolution on the matter to take to delegates for approval at the party's annual conference on September 20-23.

"While acknowledging that there are constraints in law (to full disclosure) the Patriots are, in the interim, calling on Members of Parliament who are indebted to the public to voluntarily disclose the extent of their indebtedness," the group said in statement. FINSAC has repeatedly rebuffed calls to release the names of organisations and persons who have benefited from debt write-offs with public funds, arguing that this would violate the law.

Transparency International Jamaica this week also called for FINSAC to disclose the names of indebted public officials who have benefited from public funds. Transparency, which said Jamaicans have a right to know how their taxes were being spent, took a poke at the PNP which has been using the financial troubles of Jamaica Labour Party Leader, Edward Seaga, as an election campaign issue.

"It is improper that this matter should be allowed to trickle out only for the purpose of political campaigning, or character assassination," a statement from Transparency said. Mr. Seaga is currently a shareholder in a company which has been hauled before the courts for collecting some $30 million in General Consumption Tax (GCT) which it failed to pay over to the Government. There have been heavy speculation that several politicians have been prised out of their financial problems with public funds.

But while acknowledging that it would be a good idea for politicians to declare their financial status, Mr. Thwaites said he was not prepared to use his position as acting Region Three chairman to push the issue. "I'm hoping that others will find a way to explain their own situations and I trust that it can be done in a way that allows mistakes to be corrected," he said.

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