Former CLA personnel to face charges after failing to submit statutory declarations

A former chief internal auditor at the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) has found herself in trouble with the Integrity Commission (IC) for failing to file her statutory declaration with the anti-corruption body for the year 2023.
The director of corruption prosecution at the IC has determined that Janet Cunningham  should be charged for breaching the Integrity Commission Act.
According to the director of investigation at the IC, Cunningham was legally obligated to file a statutory declaration with the Commission for the year 2023.
However, the IC said Cunningham failed to submit the requisite statutory declaration to the commission by the due date, and that she provided no reasonable cause for her failure to do so.
In that regard, she was referred to the director of corruption prosecution who ruled that she be charged for violating Section 43(1)(a) of the Integrity Commission Act.
The IC said the deadline for filing the statutory declaration had elapsed and the onus was on Cunningham to provide the commission with an explanation on what accounted for her failure to file the required document and to make arrangements to comply.
However, the commission said that up to the time of the tabling of its report in Parliament on Tuesday, the IC had not been approached by Cunningham regarding her failure to file her statutory declaration.
Octavia Ming-Campbell, a former procurement officer at the CLA, is also to be slapped with a charge of failing to submit a statutory declaration for the period ending December 31, 2023, without reasonable cause, in breach of Section 43(1)(a) of the Integrity Commission Act.
The decision to charge Ming-Campbell was made in an indicative ruling by the IC’s director of corruption which was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.
As a procurement officer, Ming-Campbell was classified as a public official and was legally required to file a statutory declaration for 2023 in line with the Jamaica Gazette dated December 5, 2023.
According to the anti-corruption body, Ming-Campbell had not approached the commission to explain why she failed to comply with the law or to discuss arrangements outlining how she would satisfy the legal requirement before the report was finalised.
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