Geisha Kow­lessar

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion yes­ter­day stood its ground re­fus­ing to di­vulge rea­sons for de­cid­ing there was no breach of the Pub­lic Life Act re­gard­ing Vid­watie New­ton, a non-em­ploy­ee of the State, who has ac­com­pa­nied her sis­ter, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on over­seas trips paid for by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Com­mis­sion chair­man, Ken­neth Gor­don said yes­ter­day com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the com­mis­sion to the com­plainant was al­ways con­fi­den­tial and there­fore can­not be re­leased to the pub­lic by the com­mis­sion. Gor­don was ad­dress­ing mem­bers of civ­il so­ci­ety and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty at a fo­rum ti­tled Re­view of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act held at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain.

The fo­rum sought to sen­si­tise the pub­lic re­gard­ing the pro­posed rec­om­men­da­tions of the com­mis­sion in its bid to ac­quire more teeth to tack­le cor­rup­tion, main­tain over­sight on peo­ple in pub­lic life and win wider pub­lic sup­port. Gor­don said the com­mis­sion was al­so ad­vised on the mat­ter by one of the coun­try's lead­ing se­nior coun­sel who he did not iden­ti­fy when the de­ci­sion was tak­en re­gard­ing the New­ton mat­ter.

By let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 12, the com­mis­sion wrote to Reynold Coop­er, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, stat­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tions found there was no wrong­do­ing. The let­ter, which was signed by the com­mis­sion's reg­is­trar, Mar­tin Far­rell, was re­leased by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on Sep­tem­ber 12.

It stat­ed: "Pur­suant to Sec­tion 33 of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, Chap­ter 22:01, 'the Act', the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged breach of the Act, to wit: Ms Vid­watie New­ton, a non-em­ploy­ee of the State, trav­els on over­seas trips which were fi­nanced by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

"Kind­ly be ad­vised that the com­mis­sion has found no breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, Chap­ter 22:01 by any­one at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter." In April, the Op­po­si­tion had writ­ten to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion re­quest­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to whether there was a breach in the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act with the Prime Min­is­ter util­is­ing State funds for New­ton to ac­com­pa­ny her on over­seas trips.

Ques­tioned on the im­par­tial­i­ty of one of the com­mis­sion­ers, a rel­a­tive of the Prime Min­is­ter, Gor­don said, "The com­mis­sion­er con­cerned re­cused her­self from all de­lib­er­a­tions on the Vi­dawatie New­ton mat­ter. "I em­pha­sise that there was no need for this mat­ter to be ad­dressed by the com­mis­sion, the ini­tia­tive to do so came en­tire­ly from the com­mis­sion­er."

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of the per­ceived "bit­ter and pub­lic stand off" be­tween him­self and the com­mis­sion's deputy chair­man Gladys Gafoor, Gor­don said, "The stand off as it was re­ferred to was be­tween the com­mis­sion, not the chair­man and the deputy chair­man and this is an ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the court. "As much as it is to be re­gret­ted, this ac­tion was avoid­able giv­en the com­mis­sion­ers' oath of of­fice and our com­mit­ment to do the right thing."

In Ju­ly, Gafoor failed in her at­tempt to pro­hib­it the Pres­i­dent-ap­point­ed tri­bunal from em­bark­ing on its in­ves­ti­ga­tions of al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct lev­elled against her by her col­leagues dis­missed. In an ex­ten­sive 87-page rul­ing, Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram dis­missed Gafoor's con­sti­tu­tion­al claim that her rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and nat­ur­al jus­tice were in­fringed by a de­ci­sion of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to sus­pend her and ap­point re­tired Caribbean Court of Jus­tice pres­i­dent Michael de La Bastide, Jus­tice of Ap­peal Humphrey Stollmey­er and Jus­tice Mau­reen Ra­j­nauth-Lee to a Sec­tion 136 Tri­bunal, to de­ter­mine with ex­pe­di­en­cy whether her al­leged mis­con­duct brought the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­to dis­re­pute and whether she ought to be re­moved.