CALL FOR IC SHIFT - Samuda proposes FID takes over review of MPs’ financial filings

Government Minister Matthew Samuda has floated a recommendation for the Financial Investigations Division (FID) to be given the mandate to review or examine the statutory declarations of members of parliament (MPs) instead of the Integrity Commission (IC).
Samuda, a member of the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee (ICOC), pitched the idea during a meeting of the body on Thursday.
“… If you are providing oversight, your files should, perhaps, go through the director of information to be reviewed at FID, not at the same entity that you are providing oversight for,” he said.
He indicated that the FID has the capacity to examine the statutory declarations of parliamentarians “as they do fit and proper [assessments] for all persons in the financial industry and for attorneys”.
Samuda suggested that the status quo be examined, arguing that members of the parliamentary oversight committee “are providing oversight to someone who is providing oversight of you”.
Continuing, he said: “It is an odd arrangement – certainly feels that way to me – and that has given rise to, I think, members on both sides not wanting to serve on this particular committee. That has given rise to – [based on] comments made in the past – fear of victimisation, whether real or imagined.”
He also raised the question of whether the oversight committee should continue to operate as a special select committee or widen its make-up to include all parliamentarians as a joint select committee, considering that the oversight affects those members as well.
The government lawmaker also commented on delays in creating regulations to address the filings of statutory declarations of employees of the IC and its commissioners.
He said there was an inherent conflict identified by both the previous joint select committee and oversight committee of IC members of staff declaring to themselves and examining themselves.
Samuda is of the view that members of the IC should have their statutory declarations examined by an external body such as the FID or the auditor general “if the holder of that office does not remain on the commission as that has been a source of much discussion”.
The previous joint select committee that reviewed the Integrity Commission Act had received a recommendation from Everald Warmington, a member of the then committee, for the auditor general to be removed as a commissioner of the IC.
However, a chorus of objections came from civil society groups as well as the parliamentary Opposition, arguing that the auditor general had provided technical support to the Integrity Commission for more than five decades. One member of civil society in 2025 called the proposed move a “step towards tyranny”.
Prior to Samuda’s remarks, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, who has taken aim at the IC in the past, saying that the anti-corruption body had “no integrity”, complained that the IC continued to ask parliamentarians about assets they owned long before they entered representational politics.
He argued that in recent times, the IC had asked him whether he had improved his home and what the cost was. The government minister said some questions being asked by the commission were intrusive.
“It is unfair that the IC should be doing this to members of parliament,” Chuck said. “That is why members feel they are being persecuted.”
The IC had declared in the past that it was carrying out its mandate based on the provisions in the Integrity Commission Act, which was passed by lawmakers in 2017. The commission has submitted a raft of recommendations over the last several years to strengthen the legislative framework of the anti-corruption body. 
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