A firestorm triggered by the Integrity Fee (IC) investigation report on Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s statutory declarations escalated on Thursday afternoon when he instructed his attorneys to file motion in opposition to senior members of the Opposition Individuals’s Nationwide Celebration (PNP) who, he stated, defamed him at a mid-morning information convention.
Phrase of the prime minister’s return fireplace got here in a information launch from Authorities Senator Abka Fitz-Henley, who confirmed the chief govt’s directions to his authorized group at Henlin Gibson Henlin.
“Ought to they not take the suitable motion, lawsuits might be filed in opposition to the PNP members who made the false statements and with none credible foundation defamed the prime minister in regards to the query of when he got here into consciousness of a bootleg enrichment probe,” the discharge quotes Senator Fitz-Henley, who can be a member of the governing Jamaica Labour Celebration’s communication activity pressure.
Through the press convention, held on the Workplace of the Opposition Chief in St Andrew, PNP President Mark Golding, Opposition spokeswoman on justice Senator Donna Scott-Mottley, and former Cupboard member KD Knight repeated the PNP’s name for Holness to resign within the wake of the report.
Each Golding and Scott-Mottley charged that Holness knew that he was being investigated by the IC for illicit enrichment when he instructed the nation that not one of the members of his social gathering have been below such probe.
Nonetheless, Fitz-Henley insisted that Holness spoke the reality when he indicated to the media on August 17, 2023 that he was not conscious of any member of the Jamaica Labour Celebration being written to by the IC with a sign that they’re below investigation for illicit enrichment.
That time was made by the regulation agency Henlin Gibson Henlin in an announcement outlining the directions obtained from Holness.
Giving a timeline of correspondence between the IC and their shopper contained within the report, the regulation agency stated: “The paperwork affirm that on the time when our shopper addressed the matter on the seventeenth August 2023, the Integrity Fee had not communicated to our shopper that he was being investigated for illicit enrichment.
“The statements or strategies within the public area that the premise of the investigation got here to the eye of our shopper since April 2023 aren’t correct. Our directions are to pursue authorized motion in opposition to individuals who make statements within the public area which can be inconsistent with these details.”
“The prime minister and social gathering chief takes his status significantly and won’t permit members of the PNP to aim to make use of false and malicious statements to destroy his character of their determined bid for political energy,” stated Fitz-Henley, who additionally indicated late Thursday night that an accusation made by Knight was additionally trigger for the defamation declare.
On Tuesday, after the IC report was tabled in Parliament, Holness delivered a private assertion on the matter and prompt that the regulation governing the IC be reviewed to stop the work of the entity from being politicised. On the similar time, he stated he wouldn’t pursue the view that the long-running investigation into his statutory declarations for the years 2019-2022 was pulled into the realm of politics.
He stated the weaponisation of accusations of corruption is nothing new in politics. “Nonetheless, even probably the most sceptical onlooker should conclude that the dealing with of this matter, the time it has taken, and the general public assets used to pursue it increase trigger for concern on many ranges.
“Whereas I can’t pursue the view that this was politicised, I consider it’s generally agreed that the regulation governing the Integrity Fee is in pressing want of revision. The present context of its operation does weaken its credibility, and we should do all the pieces to make sure that the suitable legal guidelines are in place to stop the politicisation of the fee,” he stated.
Holness additionally rejected a few of the conclusions within the report and insisted that he has complied with the obligations positioned on him throughout the regulation.
The IC’s director of investigation had really helpful that Holness be sanctioned for making false statements in his statutory declarations, by the use of omissions.
Nonetheless, the fee’s director of corruption prosecution dominated that there’s inadequate proof on file to determine that Holness, by the use of omission, made a false assertion in his statutory declaration for the interval ending December 31, 2021; due to this fact, no prices are to be laid in opposition to him.
On Thursday, the Jamaica Labour Celebration restated a priority “concerning the look that members of the PNP have distinctive entry to data from the Integrity Fee”.
