Non-compliance hovers at 50 per cent, Integrity Commissioner says

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The Chairman of the Integrity Commission has revealed that compliance across the public service is only around 50 per cent – meaning that regularly, half of all those required to file declarations of their assets with the commission simply do not.
Radford Hill has also pointed out that non-compliance occurs at all levels of government. He further revealed that some ministers of government have not declared their assets to the Integrity Commission.
“I can’t give you the number off-hand,” he said. “Some of the ministers have filed … Some have not but the prime minister is very compliant.”
When questioned about the penalties enforced for non-compliance, he replied, “To be honest I have to admit we have had less than a penal approach to this and we have to look into it further.”
Hill, an attorney by profession, said there are provisions for delinquent filers to be fined but the cases must be passed on to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for such action. He said that during his tenure, the commission had been “merely concerned in encouraging and sending out reminders to persons who need to file”.
“We have never had more than 50 per cent compliance,” he reiterated as he claimed that when he and others took office at the commission they inherited a situation from their predecessors in which no penalties were enforced on people who were delinquent.
“We didn’t want to come down hard on people because our predecessors didn’t have a good record of compliance,” he said.
The chairman was speaking to OBSERVER media during the Invest Caribbean Conference 2017 which was in session on Wednesday at the Sandals Grande Resort.

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