THE “vast majority” of Jamaicans polled by civil society watchdog, the Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP), say the main reason parliamentarians are impotent in fighting corruption is that they are “benefiting directly”.

At the same time, others believe Members of Parliament who have turned a blind eye to corruption do so because “their friends and associates were benefiting directly and as a result MPs felt they had to protect them”.

The findings of the survey, which was carried out with funding support from international partners to gauge the understanding among Jamaicans of the role of parliamentarians particularly where corruption was concerned, are to be submitted to Parliament shortly.

Tuesday, Jeanette Calder, executive director of JAMP, speaking during a webinar held to unveil the survey’s findings said, when asked the reason an MP would be ineffective in the fight against corruption, “the vast majority of the 1, 555 persons who responded to this question felt that those who are ineffective it was because they were benefiting directly”.

Calder in stating that she was “happy” that citizens did not feel the ineffectiveness on the part of politicans in the fight against corruption was because they thought they “didn’t care or were incompetent” said it is hoped that the poll findings will galvanise and help the dormant Joint Select Committee of Parliament which was drafted to deliberate job descriptions for parliamentarians.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness in June of 2023 had tabled a Green Paper in the House of Representatives outlining the job description for MP along with a White Paper detailing the job description for Cabinet members following public outcry over the more than 200 per cent salary increases granted to MPs and Cabinet Ministers.

Tuesday, Calder said JAMP had made a submission to the committee in December of 2023.

“Since December of 2023 they have not provided a response, there has not been another meeting of this joint select committee. So we are actually moving and are grateful for the media’s presence because the whole idea of this conversation is to try to see if we can trigger a response from the Parliament to have them sitting again, hopefully before the close of the parliamentary term, we don’t know when that will be, but it will be related to when the general elections are held,” she said.

According to JAMP, 57,086 Jamaicans “had actually seen the link” to the self-administered survey. Of that number 4,233 “actually clicked on the link” and of that number 1,757 “started and for the most part got very far in”.

“Because of the ratio and how disproportionate it was, it was not what you would call a representative sample. The majority of respondents fell between the ages of 25 and 34. In terms of education, we found that 98 per cent were between secondary and tertiary and only two percent being at the primary school level,” Calder told the briefing. She said 65 per cent of respondents were employed.

Ninety per cent of those surveyed (1,649) were of the belief that Members of Parliament had a role to play in monitoring corruption and not just state agencies such as the Financial Investigation Division (FID), the Integrity Commission, the Auditor General and the Major Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA).

Asked whether MPs were expected to monitor how government ministries, agencies and departments spend public funds; prosecute public officials found engaging in corruption; summon public officials to answer questions about decisions that they made or create laws, 30 per cent of the 3,811 who responded selected the monitoring function while 23 per cent said prosecuting public officials.

“So we still have a high number of citizens who believe that MPs are involved in the actual prosecution,” Calder stated, noting that this was an incorrect notion.

In the meantime, only 22 per cent (837 citizens) identified creating laws as a significant part of what MPs have to do in the fight against corruption, a finding Calder described as “surprising”.

And respondents when asked to say the one activity MPs needed to focus on in order to improve the fight against corruption, said the government needed to ensure that the Auditor General’s key findings and recommendations to rectify the problems are followed up and monitored to ensure that the executive, the permanent secretaries, the heads of agencies follow through on those recommendations.

“We had 1,524 of the 1,776 responding and we came out at 662 (43 per cent). It was very pleasing to see 43 per cent of the citizens saying that’s where the focus needs to be,” Calder said, adding that 28 per cent (431 citizens) “thought we needed to improve the laws to fight corruption”.

She, in the meantime, noted that the survey overall revealed that many citizens are still not aware of the functions or roles of the various parliamentary committees as 75 per cent of the respondents had little to no familiarity with the committees. Calder, however, said an encouraging number of individuals were familiar with the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee.

And respondents, when asked to identify the top three stakeholders in the anti-corruption fight, flagged government watchdog agencies as first followed by the citizenry and then the police. Members of Parliament, civil society organisations, the judiciary and the media also factored.

Tuesday, Calder, asked why the response rate to the survey “was so low”, said “we ended up with a more than reasonable number participating… a credible sample answered”. She, however, said it could also be that “corruption” was not “a sexy topic” while maintaining that the people who were interested were the ones who took the survey.