The Integrity Commission is meeting later today, but commission officials are refusing to say whether the issues under investigation involving Port-of-Spain South MP Marlene McDonald will be on the table for discussion. However, the T&T Guardian was told that “matters of urgency” will be dealt with.
The meeting comes following a press conference yesterday, at which Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley shared the letter which the commission sent to McDonald in October last year, which he admitted had indicated that there were matters still under investigation. But with no one having made subsequent contact with her, he said he proceeded to bring her back into the Cabinet.
Under section 20 and 35 of the Integrity in Public Life Act, the commission cannot speak about matters before it. However, chairman Zainool Hosein told the T&T Guardian that generally, during its investigations, “the parties involved will get updates on the status of their investigations, what is not allowed is sending information to outsiders” who are not part of the investigation. He said while people may say the commission is taking long with an investigation, there is a procedure to follow.
“We are acting with scrupulous fairness. We have to be very careful because we are susceptible to judicial review,” he said.
If someone under investigation feels there is undue delay in their matter, Hosein said that person can write to the commission asking why the investigation is taking so long. He, however, could not say whether anyone had done that.
Yesterday, however, Hosein said he felt that within recent times, “the Prime Minister has not been as critical as he was before of the commission. I believe the Prime Minister has finally come to understand the commission is there to do its work fairly and with efficiency, that is in all the circumstances, reasonable.”
He noted there is “no such thing as a leisurely look of the information and scrutinising required against the background of the act.”
He appealed to those subject to the Integrity in Public Life Act to file their declarations and where there are issues “to go to the commission and clear them up.” He said while there has been a 95 per cent compliance with the act in Tobago, “in Trinidad there isn’t that.”
