Government Senator Marlon Morgan says a statement by the Opposition PNP on Thursday purporting to condemn a vote by the Joint Select Committee reviewing the Integrity Commission Act, confirms the propensity of the PNP to flip-flop, and exhibit unprincipled, dishonest and opportunistic tendencies on national issues.

The committee on Wednesday voted to restore unquestionable independence to the Auditor General’s Department by removing the Auditor General as a Commissioner of the Integrity Commission.

Morgan says it is noteworthy that the initial push to remove the Auditor General from the Integrity Commission was led by the PNP, not so long ago.

“It is a fact and a matter of historical record, as confirmed by documented media reports, that the PNP convened a media conference in 2019 and called for a review of the membership of the Integrity Commission, while raising what it described as serious concerns about ‘the inclusion of independent bodies such as the Auditor General’s Department on the Integrity Commission, especially where they will have a role in crafting reports’. The PNP’s then objection to the Auditor General being on the Integrity Commission spawned headlines across media, one of which read – ‘Opposition Calls for Review of Integrity Commission’s Composition’, and that item of news noted objections by the PNP to the inclusion of the Auditor General,” Morgan says.

Morgan says it is worth recalling that the PNP’s stance was supported by a newspaper editorial of August 14, 2019, which was entitled ‘Reconfiguring the Integrity Commission’ and stated:

” It is just good sense for the Auditor General—whoever commands that post—to continue not only with the independence conferred by the Constitution and subsidiary law, but without any concern for the demands of any other agency to which he/she may be asked to be committed, and the encumbrances and politics that may be associated therewith. That is why we suggest that, in addition to the list of proposed adjustments to the law made by the Integrity Commission, Parliament should remove the requirement that the Auditor General be among its members.”

Morgan says: “Jamaicans can therefore be assured that when the PNP in 2025 is pretending to raise alarm and objecting to a majority vote by the Joint Select Committee, which is consistent with what it had been lobbying for, it is not about principle. The PNP is simply being dishonest, unprincipled and opportunistic, and is really just playing cheap politics in relation to a constitutional office which is critical to the good functioning of our country. This brazen case of flip-flopping, double-speak and hypocrisy by the PNP is to be rejected and condemned by well-thinking Jamaicans”.

The government senator says it is also instructive and noteworthy that when the PNP was lobbying for the removal of the Auditor General as a Commissioner of the Integrity Commission, contrary to their current posture, some ostensibly partisan and inconsistent lobby groups, which purport to be a part of civil society, were at no time moved to describe the lobbying as a “push towards tyranny”.