KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Sev­er­al cur­rent and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­ans named by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for out­stand­ing de­c­la­ra­tions say they have since moved to bring their fil­ings up to date.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport David Nakhid, who were both list­ed as out­stand­ing for 2024 and 2025 in­tegri­ty de­c­la­ra­tions, told Guardian Me­dia that they have since filed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, El­der said, “I have since filed my pa­pers.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Nakhid said, “We’ve since filed. No is­sues what­so­ev­er.”

Nei­ther of them in­di­cat­ed when the de­c­la­ra­tions were sub­mit­ted or what had caused the de­lay.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne al­so told Guardian Me­dia that he too has filed his de­c­la­ra­tions.

Browne, who was list­ed as out­stand­ing for 2025, said he sub­mit­ted his de­c­la­ra­tion on the first work­ing day fol­low­ing pub­li­ca­tion of the com­mis­sion’s list.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, Browne said, “The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion pub­lished their list with hun­dreds of names on Fri­day, Ju­ly 31, com­pil­ing sev­er­al years of de­layed fil­ings. In my own case, the de­lay was lim­it­ed on­ly to the 2025 fil­ing. On the very next work­ing day, Mon­day, Au­gust 3, I filed for the year 2025, which brings me up to date. I ful­ly re­spect the as­signed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, and I have strength­ened the mech­a­nisms with­in my own team to en­sure time­ly com­pli­ance at all times.”

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion MP Chris­t­ian Birch­wood has ad­mit­ted he over­looked the re­quire­ment and is promis­ing to ad­dress the mat­ter ur­gent­ly.

Birch­wood said, “I ac­knowl­edge that I have not yet filed with the In­tegri­ty Com­mit­tee. As a new Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, my ini­tial fo­cus has been on serv­ing my con­stituents, build­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and de­vel­op­ing my re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with­in the halls of Par­lia­ment. I ac­knowl­edge that I hon­est­ly over­looked this fil­ing, and I take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for that over­sight. The mat­ter will be ad­dressed with the ut­most ur­gency. I have noth­ing to hide and re­main ful­ly com­mit­ted to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and com­pli­ance with all par­lia­men­tary re­quire­ments.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed sev­er­al peo­ple named on the Com­mis­sion’s re­cent­ly pub­lished list of per­sons who failed to file de­c­la­ra­tions of in­come, as­sets, li­a­bil­i­ties and reg­is­tra­ble in­ter­ests.

These in­clude De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers.

They have all been list­ed as fail­ing to file for both 2024 and 2025.

At­tempts to con­tact all of them were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.

In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Haydn Git­tens has said the pub­li­ca­tion of the names of delin­quent de­clar­ants of­ten re­sults in peo­ple sub­mit­ting their out­stand­ing doc­u­ments or ap­ply­ing for ex­ten­sions.

De­clar­ants gen­er­al­ly have un­til May 31 to sub­mit re­turns cov­er­ing their fi­nan­cial po­si­tion as at De­cem­ber 31 of the pre­vi­ous year, while first-time de­clar­ants are giv­en 90 days to file.

Those with le­git­i­mate rea­sons for be­ing un­able to meet the dead­line can al­so ap­ply for an ex­ten­sion.

Un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, the pub­li­ca­tion of the names of peo­ple who fail to sub­mit the re­quired de­c­la­ra­tions with­out le­git­i­mate rea­son is manda­to­ry.

Fail­ure to file is al­so an of­fence which, up­on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, car­ries a max­i­mum fine of $250,000 and im­pris­on­ment for up to ten years.

Sev­er­al oth­er cur­rent and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­ans re­main on the com­mis­sion’s pub­lished lists, in­clud­ing TPP MPs David Thomas and Joel Samp­son, for­mer PNM min­is­ters Es­mond Forde, Stephen Mc­Clashie and Kennedy Richards, as well as for­mer UNC MPs and Sen­a­tors such as Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al Ram­di­al, Dr Kirk Meighoo and Dr Tim Goopeesingh.

Some in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors al­so list­ed in­clude Fran­cis Lewis, Sophia Chote, SC, and Court­ney Mc­Nish.