In his address to the annual Christmas dinner of the Integrity Commission last Monday, chairman Ken Gordon revealed that the commission had proposed to the Cabinet last August that a corruption index for this country should be created.The proposal, on the surface, sounds like a good idea, but the main challenge will be with the implementation of the index and getting the population to trust it. Mr Gordon told the dinner that there would be a "baseline survey with subsequent annual surveys to update the index."
Using opinion polling methodologies to target approximately 5,000 people for particular sectors that would yield a margin of error of about three or four per cent would provide a useful sample.The primary targets of this local survey would be the private sector, civil society, non-governmental organisations, police, armed forces, public officials, local government bodies and investors.
The commission needs to be more transparent with the public by providing details that reveal who they are working with at the University of the West Indies. Just saying that they are working with the UWI does not tell the nation who the architects of this proposal are. If the commission wants to get stakeholder support, it must provide more details about the project now that the chairman has broken the proverbial ice to reveal it.
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