The Stabroek News is offering to publish, free of cost, the names of persons in public life who have thus far failed to file their declarations of assets and liabilities to the Integrity Commission. The offer was extended on Monday following a recent disclosure by Chairman of the Commission’s Board, Kumar Doraisami that the anti-corruption body lacks the requisite funds to publish the list. Doraisami, during an interview in September, had also said that the Commission lacks funding to prosecute defaulters.

The Integrity Commission Act was assented to in 1997. The Commission’s budget increased from $39 million in 2018 to $45 million in 2019, but Doraisami said that unexpected, urgent renovation work ate into the Commission’s budget, so that the funding which it has remaining is only sufficient to pay staff, rent, and utilities.(stabroeknews)…[+]