The Tribune

By TYLER MCKENZIE

THERE is nothing else that quite shows the disregard for any government for the notions of transparency and accountability than the annual fuss over public disclosures.

It doesn’t seem to matter which government is in office – take your pick – because neither side seems to be respectful of the process, which we should remember is a legal requirement.

The Public Disclosure Act of The Bahamas is very clear on the matter. The law requires every Senator and MP to provide to the Public Disclosure Commission a declaration of assets, income and liabilities on a form provided.

That we wait until March 1 for the discussion around disclosures is very generous – the first deadline for disclosures is on December 31, though the law notes that “a declaration required to be furnished on the 31st day of December in any year shall be deemed to comply with the requirement of this subsection if it is furnished before the 1st day of March next following that date”.

That’s worth remembering when you hear talk – as we did this year – of several individuals requesting an extension. The March 1 date is effectively an extension already.

The law also spells out the penalties for failing to declare or knowingly make a false statement in such a declaration can be fined up to $10,000 or jailed for two years – or both.

Even more, if a Senator or MP deliberately fails to disclose a property, that property can be declared forfeit.

Serious consequences – but how seriously do our public leaders take it?

Well, last year a number of MPs missed the deadline – allegedly because they were not aware that there was a legal requirement for them to file financial disclosures.

At the time, press secretary Clint Watson called it a “simple oversight”. You try that next time you get pulled over by police for a problem with your car or your licence and see how far you get with it.

It was said that those who failed to file were first-time parliamentarians – and yet as part of their training on coming into their roles, the requirement to file disclosures was covered. Either they weren’t listening or they didn’t care – or both.

This year, it seems the Prime Minister, Philip “Brave” Davis, could not seem to find his way to a straight answer.

The deadline was Wednesday. On Thursday, he said: “I should be filing today. If it didn’t go in yesterday, it will go in today.”

The chairman of the Public Disclosure Chairman, Bishop Victor Cooper, seemed very happy to announce: “We have about 90 (percent) of them have filed and so that’s a good indication.”

When it reaches time to renew your car tax and licence, having ten percent of people breaking the law probably is not likely to bring much sympathy from the traffic police, I would dare to suggest.

Bishop Cooper continued: “It’s an important disclosure and so we trust that everybody will kind of comply with that but as I thought I said earlier we also need the senior civil servants to ensure that they make their disclosures with the proper documents to verify what it is they’re saying and so that we can put this behind us – those who fail to disclose we’re just going to be sending their names to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition as a matter of fact.”

I’m not sure how reassuring it is that we should trust that everybody will “kind of” comply, or that a process that happens every year might have any concern beyond a matter of routine over using the correct documents.

To their credit, some MPs have called for the process to be modernised, using online forms and so on – and so it should. In fact, there should be an automated process that automatically shows online who has or has not filed for all to see. That information, however, can only be disclosed by either the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition, and neither one of those has seemed in a hurry to do so over the years.

In January, as part of his new policing plan, Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander spoke about having a “zero tolerance” approach to crime. Also in January, National Security Minister talked about rogue police officers and a “zero tolerance” approach to those. There has also been talk of “zero tolerance” to school violence.

Crucially, Commissioner Fernander’s “zero tolerance” extends, he says to minor and major crimes.

So where is the zero tolerance towards the breach of the legal requirement to file disclosures?

Bear in mind this isn’t even getting into how scrupulously those disclosures are checked – this is just getting MPs and Senators to file them in the first place.

Once we have the documents filed, there is a great deal more that has to be done to authenticate and examine the contents.

If there is this much of a dismissive attitude to meeting the legal deadline, how much faith should we have that the contents are accurate?

It may be a bother and a nuisance for our leaders, but I do not think they realise how much it shows to the public that they just do not care for us. There are few things that are as clearly an indication of there being one law for them and one law for us if they can simply disregard a legal requirement and face no consequences.

Add to that the fact that the Freedom of Information Act seems to be lost in Never-Never Land, and the government’s failure to publish contracts as required under law, and it is little surprise that people feel so disconnected from their leadership.

It is not just the government, either – FNM leader Michael Pintard has been making a lot of noise about accountability and the Public Accounts Committee lately. Well, Mr Pintard, call for the publication of those who missed the deadline. Name and shame.

It may seem like this is a minor law – an inconvenience to those who would be our lawmakers – but it remains a law. If people are allowed to break that law with impunity, then don’t believe any words about zero tolerance. If they can break the law, why can’t we? We can’t, so neither should they.