And while the Prime Minister has agreed to reform the Public Accounts Committee and hold public hearings on the Auditor General's reports, setting up the long inactive Integrity Commission is not so simple. That's because it requires the membership of an accountant, and that person would have to submit to the stringencies of becoming a Politically Exposed Person, or PEP. Now, PEP's have to disclose all their sources of income, all their earnings…basically, all their business. The Prime Minister has complained for years that he can't find an accountant who's willing to do this - and eh told the media that a member of the Chamber's of Commerce's Board of Directors - who is an accountant - confirmed the same in a meeting with the business community yesterday:..
Rt., Hon, Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"The chartered accountant was present on the chamber's side, because that chartered accountant confirmed what I had been telling the chamber and the public all along. He certainly, and it was put to him by his fellows, was not prepared to go on to the integrity commission and subject himself to becoming a politically exposed person, so called PEP, with all the burden, disadvantages and intrusion that entailed. He also made clear that he knew of no other chartered accountant with the requisite standing was relying to become a PEP. In deed he disclosed that the matter had been discussed at a meeting of the association of chartered accountants where all present made clear that none would serve at that time. I am not sure when the meeting was held. None would serve at the cost of becoming a PEP. The chamber and I therefore discussed the possibility of changing the law to remove the provision from mandatory presence of a chartered accountant. But the fair immediately arose that this might be seen in international quarters as a weakling of the commission. In the end, all we could come up with was an undertaking by the chamber to further study the matter to see if they could possibly find chartered accountants who would be prepared to serve and to report back to me and the government."
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