The non-enactment of the Integrity Act by not appointing independent reliable individuals to become members of the Integrity Commission is wholly President Donald Ramotar’s responsibility, says Khemraj Ramjattan, Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC).According to Ramjattan, by virtue of Guyana’s Constitution the Integrity Act could only come into being when the President appoints members of the Integrity Commission. And,China Jerseys NFL, the President having been in Office for over a year, has not moved in this regard.The 33-member Opposition in the National Assembly cannot do anything but beg Government to establish the much needed Commission,Wholesale China Jerseys Free Shpping, he declared.AFC’s leader, Khemraj RamjattanThe AFC Leader made those comments in response to the United States of America 2012 Human Rights Report which highlighted Government’s apparent ineffectiveness in implementing laws that provide for criminal penalties for corruption by public officials.The US Human Rights Report zeroed in on the fact that public officials are subject to financial disclosure laws and are required to submit information about personal assets to the Integrity Commission.Ramjattan related that the Opposition has been begging Government repeatedly to reconstitute the Integrity Commission to adequately deal with alleged and real corruption. To date, Government,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, particularly, the Head-of-State has not moved forward in this regard.Government has to live with the fact that United States of America is speaking out loud and clear about this shortcoming, Ramjattan said.He added that institutional mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that Government is ready to combat corruption.The politician is of the opinion that Ramotar’s inaction is giving the perception that he is part and parcel in accommodating the corruption that the international community is talking about.According to the Government Information Agency (GINA), the Integrity Commission Act was made into law on September 24, 1997. And, on June 14, 2012 the National Assembly approved a motion for Members of Parliament to comply with the Integrity Commission Act.“Failure to comply will result in their names being published in the Official Gazette or a daily newspaper,” GINA bulletin said.According to Ramjattan, the Integrity Act needs to be amended to have public officials including Ministers of Government, Customs Officers and Senior Police Officers reveal their assets and gazette them. However, the declarations of these officials must be honest and this is where the members of the Integrity Commission would have their work cut out.President Donald RamotarHe stressed that the Commission would be toothless if it only collects declarations of Officials and no checks are made to ensure that they are accurate. Taking the investigation of Officials further,cheap nfl jerseys online, Ramjattan suggested that close relatives should also be investigated to ascertain where their wealth is coming from.He explained that if an Official is employed at a Ministry as a Chief Executive Officer and takes home ‘X’ amount of money and his wife works in another Ministry for an amount lesser than ‘X’ and has a $60M house registered in her name the Commission should investigate where the woman got the money to erect the house.Ramjattan emphasized that the pertinent question that needs answering in a lot of cases is where the money came from to erect this huge house or purchase an expensive vehicle. He stressed that members of the Integrity Commission when created must have teeth to address wrongdoings.According to Ramjattan, the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) must also complement the works of the Commissioners of the Integrity Commission. He said that the GRA should send out Officers to ascertain where persons acquire money to invest in big businesses and build lavish houses. This, he stressed, would help craft the Anti-money Laundering Bill.Ramjattan said that pertinent bodies such as the Private Sector Commission, Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry,Cheap Jerseys, Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association and other professional organizations need to mount more pressure on Government to enact the Integrity Law.According to Clinton Urling, President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), the non-enactment of the Integrity Act and by extension not setting up the Integrity Commission is hindering Guyana and it is one of the institutions GCCI wants established.GCCI’s President Clinton UrlingHe said that GCCI has been advocating for Government to enact the Integrity Act and recalled this was done extensively last year.However, GCCI is only limited to

The payment of $16M to journalist Shaun Samaroo for the covering of the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry (CoI) will be up for discussion in Cabinet.Journalist Shaun SamarooThis is according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams who said yesterday that he could not say whether any current contracts with Samaroo would be honoured. Instead,Wholesale NFL Jerseys Authentic, he said,Wholesale China Jerseys Free Shpping, Cabinet will deliberate on the issue.“That is a matter for Cabinet but what I do know is that, Mr. Shaun Samaroo was in the Commission from day one,” Williams said.He explained that he was unaware of who Samaroo was until an article was published in the Guyana Chronicle. “You would see that every day he would have written. So, I don’t know which book he’s talking about,Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale, but we know that he was covering the Inquiry and he was distorting a lot of times,Wholesale NFL Jerseys,” the AG said.He said too, that these distortions were raised on a number of occasions with the Commission’s Chairman, Sir Richard Cheltenham.He further said that he could not fathom what the reasoning by the previous administration had been to approach Samaroo with the $16M offer.“I don’t know what was in their minds…But we don’t know of honouring any debts of Mr. Samaroo. We had from the outset complained about the manner in which this commission was set up and we recognized that it was largely for political purposes and a witch-hunt; obviously that failed because the Guyanese people turnedAttorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williamsout and voted,” Williams said.He also said that he was unsure whether Samaroo had already been paid. This too will come under consideration by Cabinet, he said.Meanwhile,NFL Cheap Jerseys, Williams said he is yet to address whether he will be continuing to represent the interest of the People’s National Congress (PNC) in the Walter Rodney CoI.? He noted, however, that Attorney James Bond has been “in and out” of the Commission and is a possible fill-in. He said too, the continuation of the CoI will be up for consideration by the Cabinet.“My proposal is that there should be one final sitting where submissions will be made,” he said. “I will probably have to prepare submissions and ask the new Attorney to present.”Earlier this week, it was revealed that Samaroo had been contracted by the previous government for his coverage of the Commission. However, Samaroo later contended that the money was not for writing news reports but rather for the writing and eventual publication of a book on the findings of the inquiry.Williams had also revealed that the yet to be concluded Commission had already cost $325M.