INFORMATION Minister Robert Morgan has defended Government’s handling of corruption in the public sector, arguing that the Holness Administration has over the years taken on some of the recommendations made by the anti-corruption bodies, such as the Integrity Commission.

Answering questions at a post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House on Wednesday, Morgan did not appear worried about the country’s latest score of 44 out of 100 on Transparency International’s just-released corruption perception index (CPI) for 2021.The global corruption ranking uses a scale from zero to 100, where 100 is “very clean” and zero considered highly corrupt. With a score of 44, Jamaica is among the two-thirds of countries which scored below 50, suggesting that it is perceived as corrupt.“The Government has been very purposeful in trying to equip the Integrity Commission with the resources to do its job. The Government has also been very clear that it will never impede investigation on corruption [and] on several occasions where accusations has been raised against individuals and entities, the prime minister and the Government have taken action,” Morgan said.Transparency International noted that Jamaica has been struggling with corruption for years, and although some progress has been made, such as the establishment of the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) as an independent body, and the corruption cases recently pursued by the Auditor General’s Department, there has been resistance to reforms from some politicians.Morgan, meanwhile, argued that there is no automatic obligation on the part of the Government to take on recommendations made by the anti-corruption investigative agencies.“As the law stipulates, entities are empowered to make recommendations and the Parliament has the power to assess those recommendations, so if it is that someone makes a recommendation and Parliament doesn’t agree with all the recommendations, that cannot then be perceived to be a hindrance in the fight against corruption. What it would suggest is that any entity in Jamaica that makes a recommendation to the Parliament, the Parliament is obligated to accept that recommendation; I don’t know in a democratic society if that would be a reasonable conclusion to make,” the information minister asserted.“As it relates to [suggestions that] Jamaican politicians are resisting reforms, between 2016 and now Jamaica has seen the most significant transformation, from a legislative, funding perspective, of our anti-corruption institutions. There has been no hindrance by the Government of any anti-corruption investigation by any constituted authority,” he stated.The corruption ranking is conducted among 180 countries, measuring how experts and business people perceive the level of corruption among countries’ public sector.Morgan pointed, too, to the promulgation of the Integrity Commission Act, and the creation of a parliamentary oversight group for the commission, along with consistent funding to allow the commission to carry out its work. Furthermore, significant work has been done to empower MOCA as an independent body to investigate.Between 2017 and 2021, Jamaica’s CPI score only dipped slightly in 2019 from 44 to 43. In the 2021 CPI report on the Americas titled “A Region in Crisis”, Transparency International urged Governments to take decisive action to strengthen the transparency, integrity and independence of their justice systems by providing financial and technical resources, and offering protection to prosecutors who investigate cases of corruption and human rights abuses.It is also encouraging Governments to protect whistleblowers and include the perspectives of women and vulnerable groups in their anti-corruption strategies. It added that donor countries and multilateral and regional lending agencies should strengthen their assessment of corruption and respect for human rights when granting loans.