Bunting accuses Gov’t of delay tactics in tabling Integrity Commission reports
Tamoy Ashman / Our Today
Opposition Senator Bunting is accusing the Government of deliberately delaying the tabling of investigative reports from the Integrity Commission (IC), preferring to leak selective contents to sections of the media in order to control the narrative.
According to Bunting, the IC in a statement said it had sent a report to the Parliament and requested for it to be tabled as soon as possible. However, he said the report was neither tabled in the House of Representatives nor in the Senate last week.
“However, the report is being selectively leaked to the media, so that we see stories this morning about the same report which has not been tabled. I think it is disgraceful that one of the presiding officers of Parliament, who received that report, has shared and leaked it but has been withholding the tabling of it in the meantime.
“I think it shows that it is more important to them to establish a practice of holding back the report, selectively leaking it, and putting a spin on it, whatever spin on it the Government may want. That certainly was never the intention for an independent commission of Parliament. It is an abuse of their office, it is disgraceful, and the public should not stand for it,” Bunting contended.
The Opposition senator was speaking at a press conference today, where he addressed the state of crime and violence in Jamaica.
In a release on October 4, the IC said it delivered hard copies of an investigative report to Parliament that were received and signed for at 9:35 a.m. The report was addressed to Juliet Holness, speaker of the House of Representatives, Senate President Tom Tavares-Finson and Valrie Curtis, clerk to the Houses of Parliament.
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