Lead Stories

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

Despite the ghost of Trafigura returning to haunt the People's National Party (PNP), its general secretary has declared it is in a better moral position than the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Peter Bunting told The Gleaner yesterday that the move by the PNP to establish an integrity commission has won the confidence of Jamaicans at home and abroad. He also said the beating being suffered by the JLP over the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips issue was working to the benefit of the PNP.

"I don't think that it (corruption) is an area that we are in any disadvantage relative to the JLP," Bunting said yesterday, even as Generation 2000 - the young professional affiliate of the JLP - called on the PNP to "immediately address serious and long outstanding questions held by the country concerning the cloudy arrangements of the Trafigura affair".

The Trafigura affair involved a payment of $31 million into an account belonging to then Cabinet minister Colin Campbell.

Contractor General Greg Christie last week said he was unable to determine whether corruption was involved as Campbell did not sufficiently assist his office which had conducted a special investigation into the matter.

The PNP commissioned an appraisal report after it lost the 2007 general election. The report found that there was a perception that the PNP had grown corrupt and that Trafigura hurt its fortune.

Sufficiently silenced

"It was felt that the affair was handled badly and the persons at the centre were not sufficiently silenced from the party's business and life," the appraisal report said of Trafigura.

Yesterday, Bunting, who was not actively in the PNP at the time of the fiasco, said the perception of corruption within the ranks of the PNP was "clearly an issue in the 2007 election".

"The broader issue of corruption and the perception of corruption in the previous administration was raised in the Meeks Report, and the party has made tangible steps towards addressing that by establishing the integrity commission and by raising the bar of accountability for our candidates and standard bearers in elections," Bunting said.

The PNP general secretary said the issue of corruption which existed in the past PNP administration "was greatly exaggerated and amplified by the JLP and their propaganda machinery".

"The fact that they have now lost all their credibility with the electorate, it is causing the electorate to recalibrate what they may have accepted from the JLP spin doctors at the time of the election," Bunting said.

A Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll conducted on April 24, 25 and May 1 revealed that 36 per cent of Jamaicans thought there was more corruption in the current JLP administration, while 23 per cent believed the previous PNP government was plagued by more acts of corruption.

The poll was conducted at the height of the Manatt fiasco, which involves allegations that the Government was involved in hiring a law firm to lobby the United States on an extradition matter involving former west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com