The recently created National Integrity Commission (NIC) says that annual reports from Members of Parliament (MPs) for the period 2014-2016 have been completed and were duly submitted to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), as is the requirement under the legislation.

In a release yesterday, the NIC noted that a letter from National Integrity Action (NIA), which it received on January 17, and which was released to the media on the same day, indicated that the last report tabled in Parliament, under the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act, was the one for calendar year 2013.

However, the release did not state when the reports for 2014-2016 were completed.

Parliamentarians were required to file reports of their income, assets and liabilities with the then existing Integrity Commission (the legacy Commission), which has been subsumed under the new Integrity Commission.

“We advise that the annual reports for the years 2014 to 2016 have been completed and were duly submitted to the Office of the Prime Minister, as was the requirement under the legislation,” the NIC release said.

“We further advise that preparation of the annual report for 2017 is currently in progress, and is expected to be completed and submitted directly to Parliament before the end of the 2018/2019 financial year,” the release added.

The commission said it will commence the preparation of the annual report for 2018, upon the expiration of the statutory declaration timeline of March 2019.

National Integrity Action Executive Director Trevor Munroe, in a letter to chairman of the Integrity Commission, retired High Court Judge Karl Harrison, had noted that Parliament had “absolutely no information on the extent of compliance with the law by parliamentarians for the years 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017”.

“The public has an interest in the extent to which parliamentarians themselves are adhering to the laws passed by Parliament itself,” Munroe insisted.

He also stated that the issue took on “additional significance” because the 2013 annual report revealed that the declarations of 36 MPs — 18 each from both sides of the aisle — “were not finalised”.