Stuck at 44
Jamaica’s corruption index plateau raises concerns, calls for urgent reforms
Published:Wednesday | January 31, 2024 | 12:10 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
Principal Director of the National Integrity Action (NIA) Danielle Archer has expressed concern that no significant progress has been made in the fight against corruption to shift perception in the last four years, and is urging the Government to move beyond “lip service” to tackle the issue.
Her assertion follows the release of Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) rankings, which saw Jamaica remaining “stagnant” with a score of 44 and a ranking of 69 out of 180 countries.
A CPI score of below 50 means a country has a serious corruption problem in a context where zero is considered highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
“What the score does is to remind us that not enough is being done to support the fight against corruption. We have the institutions in place, but besides giving lip service to it, the support isn’t being given to ensure corruption becomes high priority,” Archer told The Gleaner.
The country previously attained a score of 44 in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
NOTHING TO CELEBRATE
This score continues to stand as Jamaica’s best ever score, but according to Archer, this is nothing to celebrate.
“It’s nothing to cheer about, standing time and marking time at 44 after climbing up from 38 and spending so much time at 44 means that we haven’t done anything to step forward,” she said. “Should we be satisfied with just marking time? We’re stagnant and we all know what happens to stagnant water,” said the executive director of the NIA, which is the local chapter of Transparency International.
A poor CPI score signals prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that do not respond to citizens’ needs.
In explaining Jamaica’s score, Transparency International outlined that collusion among the powerful as well as the overwhelming dominance of the executive over the legislature has weakened Parliament’s oversight capacities, creating conditions ripe for abuse and corruption.
Further, it said the “executive’s failure to close gaps in the governance framework weakens the pursuit of corruption cases involving organised crime and fosters impunity of high-level corrupt elites”.
To improve the country’s CPI score and ranking, Archer said the Government needs to start the process to amend the Proceeds of Crime Act to include unexplained wealth and also to strengthen the whistleblower legislation.
“Another thing that has to be done is this code of conduct that was promised by the minister of legal and constitutional affairs. There needs to be this code of conduct along the line of the Nolan principles because it’s only then that I believe that the perception of corruption among the politicians will change,” she said.
A Sunday Gleaner-commissioned study gauging public perception on corruption in June last year saw the majority of respondents, 44.6 per cent, labelling political leaders as most corrupt.
Additionally, Archer believes much more has to be done to release the financial standings of politicians as not only does this have public support, but it is also something “Transparency International looks at”.
Some four years ago, Prime Minister Andrew Holness signed a memorandum of understanding with the Opposition, private sector, and civil society to promulgate legislation for the confiscation of unexplained wealth.
However, a bill to advance such is yet to be tabled in Parliament despite calls from civil society groups.
The Integrity Commission Act, which established the country’s foremost anti-corruption body, was passed in 2017. The act merged the country’s then three leading anti-corruption bodies into a single entity – the Integrity Commission (IC) – following which the country’s CPI score moved from 39 in 2016 to 44.
But critics have argued that recent recommendations from government lawmaker Everald Warmington to a joint select committee reviewing the IC law, which include the removal of the auditor general as a commissioner of the IC and taking away the body’s prosecutorial powers are aimed at defanging the commission.
The NIA head warned against actions that could weaken the Integrity Commission, emphasizing the need to remove the gag clause for transparency, increase awareness and utilization of whistleblower legislation, and ensure prosecution for high-profile corruption cases. Failure to do so, she cautions, may lead to a further decline in Jamaica’s CPI score.