Senator Moe calls for Freedom of Information legislation

A Government Senator who once held ministerial responsibility for public information has urged that freedom of access to information legislation follow up the long-awaited anti-corruption bill now before the Senate.

While the new Prevention of Corruption legislation is an important step the Government is taking, said Senator Lucille Moe, it will be more effective with other laws in place to back it up, specifically the long-promised Freedom of Information Act.

In the debate on the Prevention of Corruption Act in the Upper Chamber on Wednesday, Senator Moe said: “The one thing that is missing from this suite of legislation is transparency. People must be confident in the legislation, and the Freedom of Information legislation is needed to get these things to work properly.

“Right now there is too much rumour and speculation when it comes to allegations of corruption; freedom of information legislation will put an end to that and ensure any investigation deals with just the facts.

“The most dangerous thing when governments speak of corruption is when rumours and not facts are used to determine people’s behaviour; just because it appears in a newspaper, on the radio or on social media does not mean that it is factual, and in a small society such as ours we have to stop maligning people without facts.

“Even if the allegations are untrue and the person receives some monetary compensation as a result, all the money in the world cannot erase the damage that would have been done to their reputation.”

Senator Moe, who served as Minister of Information, Broadcasting and Public Affairs in the Mottley administration until last year sought to explain why she felt it was difficult to combat corruption in general. She said: “Corruption is voluntary; people plan it, and it becomes hard to detect because those who plan it know how to put a number of complex systems in place to cover it up, and employ methodologies to ensure they don’t get caught.”

The Government Senator, a renowned regional political consultant who has worked on election campaigns throughout the Eastern Caribbean, said it was unfortunate that many people saw those involved in politics as corrupt and noted that while certain situations often brought accusations of corruption, the reality might have been different.

Citing examples, she said: “Let us say a shareholder in a company with significant Government contracts allows a senior member of Government to drive around a high end car, like a Mercedes or BMW, that they own, or lets them live at their beach house for a while, or allows them to take overseas trips on their private plane. Naturally, people will assume that you are getting extra benefits from having given out these contracts, but the reality may be completely different.

“For example, in the case of the private plane, the official may not want the hassle of having to deal with the regular commercial airlines.

“Politicians are reflective of the society in which they live. So while there is nothing inherently wrong with someone entering political office and upgrading his car shortly afterwards, people will automatically get suspicious; in truth, he would have had to go and get a car loan like everyone else.”

She concluded: “New laws do not mean that corruption will disappear, it just means we will have a series of methodologies in place to deal with it.” (DH)