Ministers miss the disclosure deadline

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TOURISM and Aviation Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar.

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SOCIAL Services Minister Frankie Campbell.

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Pakesia Parker-Edgecombe

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THREE Free National Movement parliamentarians - two of them Cabinet ministers - were granted more time to file their public disclosures, The Tribune was told.

Tourism Minister and Free Town MP Dionisio D’Aguilar, Social Services Minister and Southern Shores MP Frankie Campbell as well as West Grand Bahama and Bimini MP Pakesia Parker-Edgecombe did not meet the March 1 deadline.

The MPs all requested extensions, and to date, only Mr Campbell has submitted his declaration.

Yesterday, Mrs Parker-Edgecombe told The Tribune she was given until March 15 to file but did not do so. She said she planned to “deliver next week”.

The Tribune was told Mr D’Aguilar was given until the end of the month, but planned to file within the next two days.

The Public Disclosure Act empowers only two people to act on delinquent filings: the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. Either of them can publish the information through a communication in the House of Assembly or cause for it to be laid in the Senate. Either can authorise that the information be presented to the attorney general or commissioner of police so those who failed to disclose could face a penalty.

The penalty for not disclosing is a $10,000 fine and/or up to two years in prison.

Last year, the deadline for filings was delayed until the end of March.

Despite this, three people, two senators and a parliamentarian, still failed to make their disclosures by that date.

Those outstanding filings were submitted in the lead up to the PDC’s much-delayed meeting to discuss filings, so they were ruled to have been in on time.

When asked earlier this month, Attorney General Carl Bethel said there was no set deadline for the PDC to report outstanding filings, adding it is up to the “discretion” of the committee.