Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate, Peter Bunting, has ripped into the Government, accusing the Andrew Holness-led administration of holding onto, then leaking a report from the Integrity Commission (IC) to the media.

The damning IC investigation report which cites conflict of interest and other breaches on the part of National Water Commission President, Mark Barnett, was submitted to the Parliament on October 3 for tabling.

The commission stated in a press release that hard copies of the report were submitted in separate envelopes, under cover of identical letters, and addressed to Juliet Holness, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Senator Tom Tavares-Finson, President of the Senate; and Valrie Curtis, Clerk to the Houses of Parliament.

Speaking Tuesday during a People’s National Party press conference, Bunting accused the “presiding officers of the Parliament” of abusing their positions after receiving the reports from the commission.

“The understanding and the convention is that so soon as these reports are received, they’re tabled at the first opportunity,” Bunting noted. He then suggested that the convention was breached and pointed the finger of blame squarely at the feet of the presiding officers in general, but the government in particular.

“There’s a report (the NWC report) that is not yet tabled that was delivered to the Parliament last week Tuesday morning. There was Parliament Tuesday afternoon, the House of Representatives sat and the Senate had a meeting on Friday morning and in neither of these sittings was the report tabled,” Bunting outlined.

He added that: “The report is being selectively leaked to the media so that we see stories this morning about the said report that has not yet been tabled and I think that it is disgraceful that one of the presiding officers of Parliament that received that report has shared and leaked it but not tabled it. I think it shows that it’s more important to them to establish a practice of holding back the reports, selectively leaking, putting a spin on it, whatever spin that the government may want and that certainly was never the intention for an independent commission of Parliament. It is an abuse of their office, it’s disgraceful and the public should not stand for it”.