PRESIDENT of the Senate Tom Tavares-Finson is insisting that he will not be silenced by the Integrity Commission (IC) in voicing his concerns about what he claims is the diminished credibility of the entity.

Offended that his message for International Anti-corruption Day on December 9, 2024 was excluded from the IC’s newspaper publication because it said it was libellous, Tavares-Finson, at the start of Friday’s sitting of the Senate, hit out at this rebuff.

“When I read the message, and I have lawyer friends…there’s no libel in it, none whatsoever,” he said.

He explained that he got a letter on the November 6, 2024 from the IC, signed by its Executive Director Greg Christie, inviting him to contribute a brief written message for inclusion in the commission’s supplement. However, he said that it was after noticing his missing submission, which he thought may have been an oversight, that he realised that the IC had written back to say that his message was unsuited for publication.

The Senate president read his message for Parliament’s Hansard records, insisting that he would not be gagged, stressing that “it is in the interest of democracy that my statement be placed on the record of the society”.

In the message, he encouraged all Jamaicans to become agents of positive change by taking a strong stance against corruption. He said it is encouraging that the Government of Jamaica has passed several laws, including the Integrity Commission Act, in order to strongly support the anti-corruption fight.

However, he expressed disappointment that the IC in its current dispensation is perceived across major sections of the Jamaican society “as having lost credibility.”

“The slow rate of addressing matters, which come before the commission, anti-Government comments by the commission’s executive director, inflammatory and puerile remarks by the Integrity Commission’s chairman and the police revelation that a senior director of the commission who reportedly habitually transported wads of cash refused to cooperate with the criminal investigations where he was allegedly robbed, have dealt a near mortal blow to the credibility of the commission,” he said.

“It would be a significant boost to the perceived fairness and the anti-corruption fight in Jamaica, should the current composition of the Integrity commission be reconstructed,” he added, again insisting that there is nothing libellous about his statement, “and I don’t feel that I should have been gagged by the Integrity Commission”.

In his address to the Senate on Friday, Tavares-Finson argued that when the management of individuals who are responsible for the day-to-day running of an institution are criticised, they take the criticism of the individual as criticism of the institution.

“It is a flaw that people have because it’s an ego thing. Because when I criticise the management of any person, I am not criticising the institution, I’m trying to save the institution from committing institutional suicide,” Tavares-Finson insisted.

After completing his point, the Senate president said that he would not entertain any discussions on the matter, but Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate Senator Peter Bunting could be heard off mic saying that that side of the House was disassociating itself from Tavares-Finson’s statement on the IC.

“That message was highly inappropriate, and I’m glad they rejected it because it was highly inappropriate,” he said.