DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Dozens of cur­rent and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, in­clud­ing Cab­i­net min­is­ters, Op­po­si­tion MPs and in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, have been named by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for fail­ing to file de­c­la­ra­tions of their in­come, as­sets, li­a­bil­i­ties and reg­is­tra­ble in­ter­ests.

Among those list­ed are De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers.

The list al­so in­cludes Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les and PNM MPs Kei­th Scot­land, Symon de No­bri­ga, Bri­an Man­ning, sen­a­tors Dr Amery Browne and Fos­ter Cum­mings and for­mer MP Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, along with sev­er­al in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

The pub­li­ca­tion of their names is not dis­cre­tionary. Un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, in­di­vid­u­als who fail to sub­mit the re­quired de­c­la­ra­tions with­out pro­vid­ing a le­git­i­mate rea­son may have their names pub­lished in the Gazette and in at least one dai­ly news­pa­per.

Fail­ure to file is al­so an of­fence pun­ish­able, up­on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, by a fine of up to $250,000 and im­pris­on­ment for up to 10 years.

Man­ning, who failed to file de­c­la­ra­tions for 2024 and 2025, yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia an au­dit had de­layed his sub­mis­sion. He said he ex­pect­ed to file by the end of Au­gust and de­scribed the an­nu­al de­c­la­ra­tion process as cum­ber­some.

“I mean, they should un­der­stand how cum­ber­some fil­ing is every sin­gle year. And es­pe­cial­ly if they have been hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions ... I’ve been, you know, en­dur­ing an au­dit from them. They should un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion, but I ac­cept and un­der­stand that they have a job to do and I will sub­mit by the end of the month,” Man­ning said.

How­ev­er, In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Haydn Git­tens said pub­lic of­fi­cials are giv­en am­ple time to com­ply with the re­quire­ment. He said 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.

He said the com­mis­sion al­so is­sues re­minders from Jan­u­ary and al­lows in­di­vid­u­als with valid rea­sons for miss­ing the dead­line to ap­ply for ex­ten­sions of up to one year.

“There’s five months to do this thing, or 90 days in the case of a first-time de­clar­ant. They have time and op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet their re­quire­ments be­cause that’s a re­quire­ment once you agree to be­come a per­son in pub­lic life,” Git­tens said.

He stressed that the com­mis­sion has no dis­cre­tion to with­hold the names of non-com­pli­ant de­clar­ants, as pub­li­ca­tion is man­dat­ed by law.

Git­tens ac­knowl­edged crit­i­cism that the de­c­la­ra­tion process can be dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate, but said any changes to the form or re­port­ing re­quire­ments are be­yond the com­mis­sion’s au­thor­i­ty.

“The form and the in­for­ma­tion could be sim­pli­fied. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the ex­is­tence of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the leg­is­la­tion were cre­at­ed and ap­proved by Par­lia­ment. In ad­di­tion to the leg­is­la­tion un­der which the com­mis­sion op­er­ates, name­ly the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, the form was al­so ap­proved by Par­lia­ment. So, if it has to be changed, it has to be changed by Par­lia­ment,” he said.

Git­tens added that pub­li­ca­tion of the list fre­quent­ly prompts in­di­vid­u­als to sub­mit out­stand­ing de­c­la­ra­tions or ap­ply for ex­ten­sions. How­ev­er, he said there re­mains a “hard­core” group of de­clar­ants who con­tin­ue to dis­re­gard the le­gal re­quire­ment.

In such cas­es, the com­mis­sion can ap­ply to the court for an or­der com­pelling in­di­vid­u­als to sub­mit their de­c­la­ra­tions.

The com­mis­sion did not pub­lish a sim­i­lar list last year, which Git­tens said con­tributed to the larg­er num­ber of names ap­pear­ing this year. He ex­plained that pub­li­ca­tion dur­ing an elec­tion year can be chal­leng­ing be­cause of the move­ment of peo­ple en­ter­ing and leav­ing pub­lic life.

He al­so clar­i­fied that in­di­vid­u­als who leave pub­lic of­fice may still be re­quired to file a fi­nal de­c­la­ra­tion cov­er­ing their last year in of­fice. As a re­sult, the com­mis­sion’s pub­li­ca­tion is not lim­it­ed to serv­ing of­fi­cials, and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­ans may ap­pear on the list if they have out­stand­ing de­c­la­ra­tions from their fi­nal year in pub­lic life.

2025 IN­TEGRI­TY DE­C­LA­RA­TION LIST­ING

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters/Sen­a­tors

• De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge

• Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee

• Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen

• For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers

• Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der

• Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar

• Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Hansen Nar­i­nesingh

• Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Dar­rell Al­la­har

• Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram

• Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Na­tal­ie Chai­tan Ma­haraj

• Min­istry of Sport Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary David Nakhid

TPP MPs

• David Thomas

• Joel Samp­son

PNM MPs/Politi­cians

• Mar­vin Gon­za­les

• Kei­th Scot­land, SC

• Symon De No­bri­ga

• Bri­an Man­ning

• Chris­t­ian Birch­wood

• Sham­fa Cud­joe

• Dr Amery Browne

• Fos­ter Cum­mings

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors

• Sophia Chote, SC

• Fran­cis Lewis

• Court­ney Mc Nish

For­mer PNM Min­is­ters/Politi­cians

• Es­mond Forde

• Stephen Mc Clashie

• Kennedy Richards

• Adri­an Leonce

• Roger Mon­roe

• Kar­maria Lon­don (Fmr PNM Temp Sen)

• Dr Je­re­my In­nis (Fmr PNM Temp Sen)

• Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid (Fmr PNM Temp Sen)

• Paula Gopee-Scoon

• Kaz­im Ho­sein

• Allyson West

• Ran­dall Mitchell

• Don­na Cox

• Dr Muham­mad Ibrahim

• Has­sel Bac­chus

• Richie Sookhai

• Lau­rence His­lop

For­mer UNC MPs/Sen­a­tors

• An­drew Ram­subeik (Fmr Govt Temp Sen)

• Dr Kirk Meighoo

• Rishi Tri­pathi

• Tahar­qa Obi­ka

• Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Burke

• Ash­worth Jack

• Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al Ram­di­al

• Dami­an Ly­der

For­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors

• Josh Dray­ton

• Prof Ger­ard Hutchin­son

• Dr Shar­da Patasar

• Suni­ty Ma­haraj

• Helon Fran­cis

• Deb­o­rah Mc Fee

• John Heath

• Paul Richards

• Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my

2024 IN­TEGRI­TY DE­C­LA­RA­TION LIST­ING

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters/Sen­a­tors

• Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee

• Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen

• So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit

• For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers

• Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der

• Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar

• Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Dar­rell Al­la­har

• Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram

• Min­istry of Sport Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary David Nakhid

PNM MPs

• Mar­vin Gon­za­les

• Kei­th Scot­land, SC

• Symon De No­bri­ga

• Bri­an Man­ning

• Chris­t­ian Birch­wood

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors

• Fran­cis Lewis

• Sophia Chote, SC

For­mer PNM MPs/Sen­a­tors

• Bridgid An­nisette-George

• Kennedy Richards

• Adri­an Leonce

• Roger Mon­roe

• Ran­dall Mitchell

• Don­na Cox

• Has­sel Bac­chus

• Richie Sookhai

• Kar­maria Lon­don (Fmr PNM Temp Sen)

• Dr Je­re­my In­nis (Fmr PNM Temp Sen)

• Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid (Fmr PNM Temp Sen)

For­mer UNC MPs/Sen­a­tors

• Ani­ta Haynes Al­leyne

• Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly

• Dr Rai Rag­bir

• Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al Ram­di­al

• Sen­a­tor Dami­an Ly­der

• Tahar­qa Obi­ka

• Dr Tim Goopeesingh

• Dr Kirk Meighoo

• Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Burke

• Ash­worth Jack

• Karunaa Bis­ram­s­ingh

For­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors

• Paul Richards

• Dr Shar­da Patasar

• Suni­ty Ma­haraj

• Dr Deb­o­rah Mc Fee