The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has achieved its high­est com­pli­ance rate in terms of an­nu­al de­c­la­ra­tions, this year. 

The com­mis­sion’s chair­man Ha­dyn Git­tens re­vealed the promis­ing sta­tis­tic as he ad­dressed a sem­i­nar at the Hilton Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, to com­mem­o­rate In­ter­na­tion­al An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Day 2024. 

Git­tens not­ed that de­spite peren­ni­al is­sues af­fect­ing the com­mis­sion, it was still able to achieve the mile­stone of 74 per cent com­pli­ance, this year. 

He cred­it­ed ini­tia­tives im­ple­ment­ed by the com­mis­sion to make the an­nu­al de­c­la­ra­tion process for pub­lic of­fi­cials, sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, more user-friend­ly. 

Git­tens said that staff had cre­at­ed a tu­to­r­i­al video for per­sons re­quired to de­clare, on how to com­plete their forms and held work­shops with re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and state-owned agen­cies to help fos­ter a cul­ture of com­pli­ance. 

“We are en­cour­aged by what we have achieved,” Git­tens said. 

He not­ed that the com­mis­sion cur­rent­ly had 51 mat­ters be­fore it with 16 be­ing dealt with for the year so far. 

He not­ed that the com­mis­sion was still fac­ing is­sues with staffing with 71 per cent of staff be­ing on short-term con­tracts since 2017. He point­ed out that the com­mis­sion was un­able to ef­fec­tive­ly re­cruit and re­tain em­ploy­ees as a re­sult.

“It is al­so not the ap­pro­pri­ate form of en­gage­ment giv­en the high­ly sen­si­tive and con­fi­den­tial na­ture of the work we per­form,” Git­tens said, as he not­ed that the com­mis­sion had sub­mit­ted pro­pos­als to Cab­i­net for ap­proval. Git­tens lament­ed that the Cab­i­net had ear­li­er this year with­drawn the com­mis­sion’s sug­ges­tions for amend­ments to the leg­is­la­tion to strength­en its in­ves­tiga­tive pow­ers, of­fer pro­tec­tion to whistle­blow­ers and wit­ness­es, and im­ple­ment penal­ties for breach­es of the code of con­duct for pub­lic of­fi­cials. 

De­spite the out­come, Git­tens said the com­mis­sion would con­tin­ue its ad­vo­ca­cy.