The big booming sound you heard echoing across Jamaica last Tuesday was the detonating of the political time bomb consequent on the tabling in Parliament of the Integrity Commission’s (IC) report on the statutory declaration of Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

The debris from this blast is still falling, and, as in all states of confusion arising from such events, there are varied interpretations of what the report has said. There are still unanswered questions which have left the report open-ended and begging for serious analysis.

A deeper reading of the report suggests that it suffers from a superfluity of words that stretches the patience of even the most committed linguist. What became a 179-page document could easily have been condensed to between 20 and 30 pages.

Some people miss the authentic ring of the simplicity of language when presenting documents of this kind. Their field of vision is never the ordinary person but an audience that they believe is in sync with their own level of thinking. If they can understand what they write then everyone else should.

Now to what has been reported. The big uproar, especially from the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), is that the prime minister is being investigated for illicit enrichment and he is one of the six, and later eight, Members of Parliament who have been so fingered by the IC.

The prime minister has averred that he only became aware that he was a part of the “Illicit Six” in August 2023. The PNP has charged that this is not so. This has resulted in the prime minister threatening a lawsuit in the matter.

From what I have gleaned from the report, the concern of the commissioners was squarely focused on the substance of the prime minister’s submission to them, which is borne out in the voluminous documents regarding his business dealings. We must remember that the prime minister’s declaration has been languishing in the offices of the IC for almost three years, long before any allegation of illicit enrichment by the six or eight.

Is there a demarcation to be drawn between the normal investigation of his statutory declaration and an assumption of illicit enrichment that might have arisen later in the day? To my interpretation of the report, the IC does not make this clear. And if this is not clear, is it not disingenuous for anyone to append illicit enrichment to the prime minister’s declaration, especially when none of the names of the eight have been made public by the commission?

The problem might be with the subtlety of language. But I believe it is necessary to draw a clear line between the two issues, that is, the prime minister’s almost-three-year-old declaration and the illicit eight. It might be that as a parliamentarian the prime minister is one of the eight, but at this time that is sheer speculation.

Until this can be clearly determined, it is not fair to the prime minister to say he is being investigated for illicit enrichment. One cannot make that deduction from the report. This may be the reason the director of corruption did not see any reason to refer him for prosecution. This, after a six-month scouring of materials sent to a foreign forensic audit expert who found no illegal activity in the matters so referred.

Which begs the curious question as to why the IC has not certified the prime minister’s declaration. If they did not find him culpable of any financial malfeasance, why allow the matter to continue to hang like the sword of Damocles over his head?

Sitting in his silo, Commissioner Kevon Stephenson does not seem satisfied that he should get off so easily. Is this why he has recommended that the Financial Investigations Division (FID) and the Tax Administration of Jamaica (TAJ) be brought in to see if there was wrongdoing in the movement of substantial sums of money among companies in which the prime minister has an interest? Should the certification of his declaration when, again, no wrongdoing was found, be held hostage to what these two, and perhaps other entities, may find? Something does not sit right here.

We are clearly in an election posturing period. The Opposition, sensing a moment, has called on the prime minister to resign. Lawsuits are being threatened and the truth runs the risk of being buried in debris of innuendos and obfuscations.

The IC report has not helped to make things easier for these innuendos to cease. But all well-thinking Jamaicans must call on both sides of the political spectrum to cool it and try to staunch the flow of the political testosterone that is flowing too freely at this time.

The call by the PNP for the prime minister to resign is pure political posturing to score one against the Government going into the next general election. It is too salacious to resist kicking a phantom in the dark.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator, and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storms; The Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life; and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics and the Future of America. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.

Andrew Holness