Civil society groups are not interested in real accountability . Part Three

Integrity Commission 2021/2022 Annual Report

In the 2022/2022 report, the Integrity Commission cited 6Parliamentarians  and 28 Public officials as being investigated for illicit enrichment. Are we to assume that members of civil society and the media

1. Did not read this report and so were never aware these 28 Public Officials
2. Read the report and chose to ignore the glaring 28 public officials
3. Read the report and decided they want the public to focus on 6 only

I don’t have the answer, so only they can respond

In the same Integrity report the following was noted

The government of Jamaica has provided a level of transparency never seen before with government and just for the public information, the Integrity Commission provides a quarterly update of all government contracts, to include.

1. Value of each contract
2. The procurement entity
3. Value of the contract
4. Who received the contract/

The information can be accessed here.

https://integrity.gov.jm/qca-consol

Example of what you will see on this site

In addition to this, the Government of Jamaica has added another site that allows for ordinary Jamaicans to view the contracts that have been put out to tender and all details related to these contracts.

This site which has been approved by the World Bank is  Government of Jamaica Electronic Procurement Portal and can be accessed here  https://www.gojep.gov.jm/epps/home.do

This level of transparency which are all designed to reduce the incidence of theft and illicit enrichment has never existed in Jamaca before.

Here is an example of what you can get here.

I say to the people don’t be misled by so called civil society groups and the media, instead seek out the information yourself.

The issue of illicit enrichment via contracts by Parliamentarians and politicians in general has gotten extremely difficult and while the same may exist for public officials, the fact that they are an integral part of the process, allows them greater access to public funds.

If we really want to stamp out corruption and in particular illicit enrichment, we are likely to get greater levels of success from going after to a larger pool of people with greater access to public funds.

I put it to you that the noise being generated by the Integrity Commission 2022/2023 is just that, noise all, and it not meant to reduce incidences of illicit enrichment  but are instead  meant to bring about a political coup and entrust government to those they favour.

Civil society groups are not interested in real accountability . Part Two

Integrity Commission 2019/2020 annual report

Two  public officials listed. One went to court and was found not guilty, while the other had a court case, the outcome which was never found. The timelines were a bit off, since the Gleaner report was in 2013 yet the public official who was already before the courts was listed in the 2019/2020 report. Of note one public official pleaded guilty to illicit enrichment in the Gleaner report. This is in keeping with my statement above , where I asserted that the public officials have the greatest access to public funds and is where the focus ought to be.

Integrity Commission 2020/2021 Annual Report

In the 2020/2021 report, the Integrity Commission cited 2 Parliamentarians  and 6 Public officials as being investigated for illicit enrichment. Are we to assume that members of civil society and the media :

a) Did not read this report and so were never aware these two
b) Read the report , but chose not to make the information public for whatever reason
c) Did not think it would gain any political traction so did not comment
I don’t have the answer, so only they can respond

Integrity Commission 2021/2022 Annual Report

In the 2021/2022 report, the Integrity Commission cited 1 Parliamentarians  and 3 Public officials as being investigated for illicit enrichment. Are we to assume that members of civil society and the media

1. Did not read this report and so were never aware these two
2. Read the report , but chose not to make the information public for whatever reason
3. Did not think it would gain any political traction so did not comment

I don’t have the answer, so only they can respond

Civil society groups are not interested in real accountability . Part One

I have long held the view that most of Jamaca’s civil society groups are political activist masquerading as the social conscience of the Jamaican society.

These groups continue almost on a weekly bias to lose the trust and confidence of the Jamaican people as they now seem to be getting desperate in their attempts to paint this administration as one that does not want to be held accountable and is corrupt.

Let’s look at their reaction to the Integrity Commission 2022/2023 annual report, where it was reported that fifty-two(52)  public officials ( i.e., people being paid by the public purse) are under investigation for illicit enrichment and or false information.

These civil society groups ignored the 46 members of the public officials and zeroed in on 6 politicians . Most members of the public have not read the Integrity Commission and are relying solely on the public release from civil society groups and would be under the impression that only 6 persons are under investigation.

Let’s think about this for a second, why should the 46 other people who are under investigation not be asked to step aside while the investigation is being conducted vs just the 6 politicians, who these groups perceive are members of the ruling party.

Let me spend a few minutes educating the public on several things, which shows why the focus really ought to be on the 46 and less so on the 6.

Let’s examine how politicians have in the past stolen money from the public purse for self-enrichment.

Public Contracts

Government spends billions of  dollars each year in public contracts as well as public procurement of goods and services, and this has been the way politicians in the past have been able to siphon off public funds from themselves.

Public capitals projects have been the  main access to funds by corrupt politicians , but this has all changed over the last 10 years or so.

Currently, it’s extremely difficult for any politician to influence and corruptly benefit from these massive public expenditures, which would have been the primary source for illicit benefits.

The politicians of today have virtually no access to public funds, but the same cannot be said for many public officials, who have significant access to public funds.

Many of these have direct access, via sourcing of goods and services, approval of purchase orders as well as invoices as well as the final payments, putting them in direct contact with billions of dollars of public funds.

Despite the above, we are being told,  “oh we really have no interest in those folks”, it’s the politicians we are after for illicit enrichment.  Clearly what we have at play is nothing but a ruse by civil society groups to try and influence the political process but pulling nothing short of a political coup and in so seeking to install the political party of their choice.

Why, do I say this. Well, the evidence is there for all to see, if the public officials have greater access to public funds as I have described above, the focus on illicit enrichment really ought to be targeted at those people, vs other without that level of access.

Having said that, why are we not seeing that and why is the public being led to believe its only 6 people who are under investigation.

Let’s go back and look at previous Integrity Commission annual reports , again something these groups have chosen to ignore for whatever reason.

To be continued in Part 2