GOVERNMENT legislator Delroy Chuck is insisting that the Integrity Commission (IC) wraps up its illicit enrichment investigation into six parliamentarians, as well as several other public officials, and submit its report to Parliament without further delay.

Chuck, the justice minister, gave the charge at Tuesday’s meeting of the IC Oversight Committee, after highlighting the issue of the commission’s clear-up rate for investigations.

“We need to hear from the Integrity Commission when are those reports of the six and 28 [public officials going to be ready], whether those matters have been cleared up. And if they have not been cleared up the commission should report on them [to Parliament] as soon as possible because it shouldn’t be too difficult for the IC to demand responses from whoever those…persons are,” he said.

Pointing to a pattern of the IC completing investigations long after they commence, Chuck argued that it should not take the commission a year to investigate and clear up the matter of illicit enrichment allegations.

“I would hate to think that in the next annual report we’re going to hear from the commission that in fact the six have not been cleared up. If they have not cleared up, investigate them and report to Parliament as quickly as possible,” he said while also noting that the six parliamentarians under the enrichment probe continue to remain a mystery.

Chuck, who is also a member of the IC Oversight Committee of Parliament, further pointed out that from the few meetings the committee has had with the commission there is an impression that their focus is only on high-level officials and politicians.

“They should look at certain other areas of government where allegations are made generally in the public about bribery, paying people to get things done, and where the people feel public officials are corrupt. Investigate, use the Protected Disclosures Act, and urge more information or more disclosures so that more corruption can be investigated at all levels,” he said.

He said the Government wants the commission to succeed but that success must be measured by how well the country is doing to stamp out corruption — and especially to get a better Transparency International corruption rating.

Jamaica currently has a score of 44 out of 100 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

Added Chuck: “It would be nice if the Integrity Commission could find ways and means to show how we are stamping out corruption, and what measures are being used to stamp out corruption. Forty-four put us at about 70 overall across the world so we really need to improve our number to 50 or 60,” Chuck said, explaining that 100 is no corruption while zero is all corruption.

Opposition Committee member Phillip Paulwell was in agreement that IC investigations tend to take too long for completion, and questioned whether they have sufficient staff members to perform all the functions given to them in a timely manner.

“Sometimes these report come almost stale-dated because the issues under consideration took place many years back, so perhaps we could probe that to see if in approving resources for the Integrity Commission, if there’s a need for more staffing to do these investigations. We should hurriedly grant such resources to the commission,” he said.

But Chuck responded to say that, to the best of his knowledge, the IC has been given every resource, personnel that they have asked for, noting that they got a budget of close to $1.5 billion this fiscal year.

“For the last six years the commission would have spent way in excess of $5 billion, and I’m saying that we want the IC to succeed. And the question of success is to show that corruption is being dealt with or being deterred across all levels of the society — and that is the measure [by] which we feel that we would be getting value for money.

“It cannot be that we’re spending $1.5 billion and we are not stamping out corruption at all levels. In other words, it would be regretful that in two, three years we can’t say to the international community, after spending another $5 billion, that we have not deterred corruption at all levels of the society. It’s very important for us to focus and see how best we can deter and eliminate corruption at as many levels of the society as possible,” he insisted.

However, Committee Chairman Edmund Bartlett said that while he would not comment on the speed at which the commission completes its investigations, it is required that the body works with the efficiencies that enable it to give Parliament “the highest and best reports”.

“I wouldn’t want to suggest that they should speed up anything or slow anything. There’s no need for any kind of catalytic suggestion in that regard but I would make the point that there are perhaps some questions that the committee wants to have clarified, and perhaps the timing of our meetings with the commission could then be structured to enable, on a regular basis, to have some of these questions and matters addressed,” he suggested.

He proposed that the commissioners be invited to the next committee meeting “to look at these and other issues that are of concern to us, as together we work to make the whole process better and to enable an efficient and effective commission solving the problems that Minister Chuck is very concerned about, and all of us in the society are very, very concerned about — the matter of beating this dragon called corruption”.