KINGSTON, Jamaica — OBSERVER ONLINE has confirmed that former Contractor General Dirk Harrison is to end his stormy relationship with the Integrity Commission on September 1.

Harrison has informed the Governor General of his decision to retire even before he was formally appointed to the position he was designated to act in, director of corruption prosecutions at the Integrity Commission which subsumed the Office of the Contractor General (OCG), the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption and the Integrity Commission (Integrity of Parliament Members). 

There were clear signs that all was not well in the relationship between the commissioners of the Integrity Commission and the former contractor general since April when they distanced themselves from the ‘Rooms on the Beach Report’ done by the former OCG even as they denied that this signalled a rift with Harrison.

At their first media briefing in May, the commissioners, led by chairman retired Justice Karl Harrison, dismissed speculation that they were throwing the former contractor general under the proverbial bus.

“The commission has no quarrel with Mr Harrison. There has been difference of opinions specific to the Rooms Report from the commission’s view point, but this does not amount to a rift or, as has been said, bad blood between the commission and himself,” Justice Harrison told journalists at a media briefing.

There was more public indication of the rift one month later when the former contractor general blasted the commission for its failure to have a single case placed before the courts in the more than one year since it was established.

“The Integrity Commission, which I am a part of, has not prosecuted a single person in 15 months. It is woefully unacceptable that thousands of matters which remain in the system are not being prosecuted,” declared Harrison whose decision to retire has ended a relationship that long seemed destined to fail.

Arthur Hall