The head of Transparency International and the finance minister of Nigeria will be among the speakers at a three-day conference on corruption at the University College of the Cayman Islands, starting Wednesday evening.
Among the dozens of speakers and panelists will be local and regional politicians, a few who have had questions raised about their own activities in the past. UCCI President Roy Bodden said all will be fair game in the discussion at the conference, “Towards a Corruption-Free Caribbean: Ethics, Values and Morality” running from about 5 p.m. Wednesday until late Friday evening.
“The greatest political writer of all time, in English, is a man called Edmund Burke,” Mr. Bodden said. “He said that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for men of good will to do nothing.
“All that is necessary for corruption to thrive is for us to sit and do nothing. It is incumbent upon us, whether it affects us or not, to do something. The easiest thing we can do is to become aware that corruption affects everybody and that it is often the poorest who suffer most from corruption.”
Although there are a number of politicians on the various panels, Mr. Bodden said it was the school’s view in putting on the conference that corruption is not limited to the political arena.
“For example, we’re talking about corruption in education, medicine … so it’s not that we are targeting politicians, per se,” he said. “We’re trying to make a world-class institution and we don’t want to be in any way insular. There are jurisdictions in dealing with these things academically and in a practical manner as well.”
One of the plenary panel speakers on Friday is the former contractor general of Jamaica, Greg Christie, who was assigned bodyguards by the government during his time in office and who had an employee threatened with death while investigating a government contract.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian finance minister, is a “world-wide leader in the fight against corruption,” Mr. Bodden said. Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala will speak Thursday morning at the opening of the working group sessions of the conference.
Just after the Nigerian minister’s presentation, Cayman’s Premier Alden McLaughlin will join his peers from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Bermuda and the Bahamas for a round-table discussion on anti-corruption strategies and assessments. Mr. McLaughlin recently gave an address at London’s Chatham House, where he declared the fight against corruption to be a “global issue.”
Noted Jamaican corruption-fighter and professor Trevor Munroe will give his views on a panel discussion on how to set up effective anti-corruption organizations. Former Cayman Islands Auditor General Dan Duguay is also joining one of the discussion panels, “Cayman Islands Under the Spotlight.“
Current Caymanian officials are also participating, including Mr. Bodden, Deputy Governor Franz Manderson, current Auditor General Alastair Swarbrick, Complaints Commissioner Nicola Williams, Acting Information Commissioner Jan Liebaers, and local MLAs Ezzard Miller, Bernie Bush, Winston Connolly and Alva Suckoo.
Other panels will explore the influence of the dancehall culture on corruption and the Caribbean media; ethics in medicine, sports and the legal profession; and the role of parliament in curbing corruption.
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The only corruption that occurs in this world is corruption that stems from the ambitions of secret societies. I am sure that they will be well-represented on the panel.
Anyway, this is no earth-shattering news.
1 John 3:10-11 states
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
If we really loved each other we would not have half of the problems we have today.