Joseph Hibbert case being studied by World Bank unit

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

THE alleged involvement of former Junior Transport Minister Joseph Hibbert in the Mabey and Johnson bribery scandal is said to be among 180 worldwide cases being analysed by the World Bank's Financial Market Integrity Unit.

The Office of the Contractor General (OCG) announced in a news release on Friday that the World Bank had written to Contractor General Greg Christie on February 22, 2010 advising that Hibbert's case was among 180 being carefully analysed under the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative.

"The bank, which said that it possesses a copy of the OCG's Investigation Report on the matter and that it had found it to be very useful and informative, was also interested in knowing if Mr Hibbert himself has been formally prosecuted in Jamaica," the OCG statement read.

The OCG said the World Bank's written enquiry was forwarded on February 22, 2010 by Christie to Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn for her attention.

Chief special investigator Maurice Barrett will be representing the OCG at a May 5 meeting of a group of experts from Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss issues relating to the misuse of corporate vehicles.

The OCG's release said the bank's invitation arises from a policy study which it is currently conducting in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) under the StAR Initiative.

"The StAR Initiative aims at developing and disseminating practical tools and policy papers to assist developing countries in recovering the proceeds of corruption from foreign jurisdictions," the statement said.

It noted further that the study also seeks to identify common trends in the misuse of corporate vehicles.

The OCG noted also that earlier in April, it assisted the bank by completing a formal questionnaire which was designed to obtain, among other things, the insights of investigators and prosecutors into the most common and frequent obstacles which they face, as well as the tools and good practices that are employed by them in trying to identify the beneficial owners of the corporate vehicles.

The World Bank Miami Round Table meeting will, among other things, review the findings from the questionnaire.

"This, in turn, will inform the development of a joint World Bank/UNODC publication, under the aegis of the StAR Initiative, of a 'good practices' guide for investigators, prosecutors and policy makers," the statement said.

Last month, DPP Llewellyn ruled that there was not sufficient evidence available for charges to be made against Hibbert.

However, Llewellyn said there is "sufficient compelling material" for the police to further investigate allegations of corruption on the part of the former junior works minister, who was in September last year named as one of a dozen politicians and officials allegedly bribed by the British firm for favours around the world.

Llewellyn's ruling came after she perused the report of the contractor general which was turned over to her office for action in October last year. The allegations against Hibbert surfaced in December 2008.

The embattled politician, who resigned from his post as junior transport minister last July but held on to his job as member of Parliament for East Rural St Andrew, is alleged to have collected £100,000 over an eight-year period for favours, including a contract valued at £14 million.

The alleged bribe was said to have been paid in the 1990s when Hibbert, an engineer, worked as chief technical director in the works ministry.

Hibbert has consistently maintained that he is innocent of the charges.

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COMMENTS (4)

josh davis
4/28/2010

The jamaican government openly sanction and facilitate corruption there are too many cases to prove this.Stop acting like a fool.

george watson
4/27/2010

Nina Nais asks if we know of any government which openly sanctions corruption. Look no farther than Jamaica. There is nothing subjective about a government which refuses to extradite somebody who is openly accused of wrongdoing, to the detriment of everyone else.
Can't you see that the people are grief stricken, shocked and afraid as we mourn our families, friends and community members who are cut down by the bullet everyday?
Yet we use a technicality to shield someone who is accused of bringing in the very guns which snuff out the lives of our people.

Nina Nais
4/27/2010

Jaye Stone,
Do you know of any government that openly sanctions corruption? So how would you determine which ones do? That would involve quite a bit of subjective decision-making.
If instead you are talking about governments that suffer from pervasive corruption, then there would be virtually no lending, because all governments have that problem. I recently lived in the UK for a number of years, and there seemed to be some government scandal every other month - almost like Jamaica.

Jaye Stone
4/27/2010

International money-lending agencies should refuse to lend money to nations whose governments sanction corruption. Perhaps this is a way of keeping them honest.

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Joseph Hibbert case being studied by World Bank unit