FLA TRUST ‘BETRAYED’

Former national security ministers Peter Bunting and Robert Montague are facing scathing criticism from a founding director of the board of the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) who says they, and some board members, have betrayed the confidence bestowed on the entity.

In a Gleaner interview Thursday, hours after the publication of the Integrity Commission’s special report on an investigation into questionable operations at the FLA, retired Lieutenant Commander George Overton said the scandal bedevilling the authority lies at the feet of the former ministers and board.

The 245-page report covered the period 2012-2018 following an investigation into allegations of impropriety, irregularity, and corruption in the issuance of firearm user licences to persons of questionable character.

“I have confidence in the staff of the FLA. I believe that the confidence has been betrayed in the period that the Integrity Commission reported on by members of the board and the ministers who presided over those actions,” said Overton, who was one of the first directors of the board of the FLA when it was established in 2005.

He said at that time, he recommended that members of the FLA board be subjected to annual polygraph tests to maintain and ensure integrity.

However, he said the practice was not popular back then and the advocacy for the recommendation fizzled.

“It is not too late to consider it,” he suggested.

The Integrity Commission said its investigation was prompted by media reports that raised several red flags about the operations at the FLA.

In its findings, the commission said licences were granted to individuals who were convicted of drug offences in at least 13 cases while in at least four instances lottery scammers received gun permits.

The report added that in at least seven instances, licences were granted to applicants convicted of violent crimes who had previously been denied.

It said firearm user licences were denied and subsequently granted to individuals who were convicted for illegal possession of a firearm in at least three instances while permits were granted in at least 10 instances to persons FLA investigators said committed drug-related offences.

It also said that in 30 of 52 instances for the period February 2016 to February 2018, FLA investigators did not recommend that applicants be granted firearm user licences.

“Notwithstanding the fact that these persons were denied by the FLA board, they were subsequently granted the referenced licences upon a reconsideration of the board,” the report said.

Additionally, it said Montague knowingly granted gun permits to six people with criminal traces when he was security minister between 2016 and 2018 while Bunting, who held the portfolio between 2012 and 2016, granted gun licences to two people of similar ilk.

Overton has argued that these matters should have been handled by the review board and ought not to have reached the desk of the ministers.

“There is an appeals board, and the appeals board is supposed to handle the appeals of persons who have either had their firearm licences revoked or who have had their applications rejected,” he said.

“I don’t know how the ministers came into the equation at all because these matters should have been dealt with by the appeals board. I would hate to think that after the main board rejects an individual, the appeals board of the FLA rejects an individual, that the minister is going to overturn the decision.”

The Firearms Act, which is currently under review by Parliament, outlines the role of the minister of national security as receiving and considering the reports of the review board, and upon a review of same, directing the FLA board “as he may think fit” in relation to firearm user licence applications.

Further, it said where the review board fails to submit to the minister, for his determination, a written report of its findings and recommendations, the minister may hear and determine the matter under review.

In a statement on Thursday, Montague, who is now a minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, said the Integrity Commission’s report “is grossly misrepresentative and incomplete”.

He said he was not “fully” given the opportunity to respond to what the commission “sought to assert as facts”.

He said the report did not take into consideration that his actions were informed and guided by the recommendation of a panel of experts.

The minister said the report has been referred to his attorney.

Montague’s stewardship of the security and transport and mining ministries has been called into question in the past when he presided over the unresolved police used-car saga and dissolution of the boards of the Airports Authority of Jamaica (AAJ) and Norman Manley International Airport Ltd in the wake of a Gleaner revelation that the AAJ had made a $450-million stock purchase in the St Lucia-registered firm First Rock.

The purchase was a breach of the law because the entities did not get the permission of the minister of finance.

Similarly, last November, the Clarendon Alumina Production board resigned amid growing controversy over a series of contracts given to CCA Capital Partners in recent months.

Meanwhile, Bunting, the leader of opposition business in the Senate, said also that the report has been sent to his attorneys.

He said the report listed a number of what “appear” to be serious irregularities at the FLA, “almost all of which” occurred after his time as the responsible minister.

He said the cases in question were two out of hundreds he would have reviewed during the four-year period.

“From my recollection, the firearm review board had recommended that the licences be granted or restored, and as minister, I acted either in accordance with their recommendations or more conservatively,” said Bunting.

“The contents of the Integrity Commission’s report do not support the headlines and other statements in the media coverage which relate to me, and the media coverage is in my view defamatory.”

The report also named Dennis Meadows, the former deputy chairman of the FLA, who, it said, could face charges for misconduct in a public office, breach of public trust, and a breach of the Corruption Prevention Act.

The Gleaner first reported on February 16 that Clint Rennie, the brother-in-law of Meadows, was among more than 200 people of questionable character reportedly granted gun licences by the FLA.

Documents seen by The Gleaner showed that Rennie was convicted for possession of cocaine and his application was denied in August 2015 on the basis that he failed to disclose his criminal conviction.

Without submitting an application for appeal or making a new application, he was granted a licence in June 2016, three months after Meadows joined the FLA board.

The licence was revoked in February 2020.

The Integrity Commission said that as a public servant, Meadows advanced a private interest, which resulted in a benefit to his family member.

“In this respect, his actions contravened the principles of integrity and good governance,” the director of investigations said.

Meadows did not respond to The Gleaner for comment on the commission’s findings.

The matter has been referred to the director of corruption prosecutions for a determination to be made in relation to whether his actions amounted to an explicit act of nepotism, which constitutes the common-law offence of misconduct in public office, a breach of public trust, and a breach of Section 14 of the Corruption Prevention Act.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com