That’s not how it’s done, Ms Tesheira
Today's Editorial | 1:01 pm
Published: March 13th, 2009
Today's Editorial | 1:01 pm
It is more than a little bit disingenuous for Minister of Finance Karen Tesheira to suggest that making a declaration to the Integrity Commission is sufficient to exculpate her from the allegation of having a conflict of interest in the bailout of Clico and the other parts of the CL Financial empire being salvaged with taxpayer dollars. The first point to be made is that the declaration made with the Integrity Commission, whatever it was, was not known to the public and remains unknown. For the population to be fully aware of such a declaration, it should have been made in Parliament or at a publicly held news conference. Second, the minister should then have made the declaration to a Cabinet meeting when the matter came to be discussed.
But there is another requirement to meet the gold standard and international best practice in such matters. Having declared such an interest in the matter, the minister would then have had to excuse herself from any Cabinet discussion and decision-making on the matter in question. The common and accepted practice in the courts, for instance, is for magistrates and judges, when faced with the possibility of a conflict of interest, to declare their hand and then recuse themselves from any involvement in the matter in which they have an interest. The expectation must be of a similar nature for a minister, more so a Minister of Finance. Also, there has been some effort to minimise the real value of the minister’s shareholding in Clico. That is absolutely beside the point; the value of the shares is not important to being seen to be involved in narrow self-interested decision-making.
But of course, as the news stories in this newspaper have calculated, the projected value of $11.7 million is not to be sneezed at, and if even that value is discounted by half, over $5 million is quite a substantial sum in any language. Moreover, if it is true that Minister Tesheira received over $31,000 in dividends on her investment in January, that is not chicken feed. Similarly disingenuous is the response of Prime Minister Patrick Manning in attempting to make as if it is “no big thing,” this business of holding shares in the company and making decisions to salvage the company with public monies. The Prime Minister’s off-the-cuff contention that half his Cabinet has annuities and other kinds of policies with Clico is as big a red herring as you can catch in the sea.
One, owning shares in a private company is very different to being a policyholder. Two, as far as has been made public, it has been the Minister of Finance who has been working directly with the Central Bank on the bailout programme, not any other Cabinet members. The whole spirit of the Integrity in Public Life Act is based not merely on the tenets of the legislation but also on public perception: there must not be a scintilla of evidence which could possibly suggest that a public official could, in any way, benefit directly and personally from making public policy decisions.
The Code of Conduct in the Act at 24-2 (a) states very clearly such public officers “shall not use his office for the improper advancement of his own or his family’s personal financial interest or the interest of any person.”
Further, the Code at 23 (c) requires that the person in public office “arrange his private interests, whether pecuniary or otherwise, in such a manner as to maintain public confidence in his integrity.” Now these are clear indications both from the letter of the law and the spirit of it. We leave it up to our readers to make decisions based on the uncontroverted facts as reported in the Guardian.
