Opposition Leader Mark Golding has called on Prime Minister Andrew Holness to dismiss his embattled Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister, Dr. Andrew Wheatley, after the Integrity Commission (IC) recommended that he faces face four charges, including illicit enrichment.
Wheatley has already vowed to clear his name and is the first of eight parliamentarians being investigated by the IC for possible illicit enrichment, which relates to public officials being unable to satisfactorily explain assets that exceed their lawful income. The Integrity Commission is recommending that Wheatley be charged with knowingly making false statements in statutory declarations under two pieces of legislation, failing without reasonable cause to provide information requested by the Director of Information and Complaints, and illicit enrichment.
The IC said Wheatley was given the opportunity to account for how he acquired the assets, but a satisfactory explanation was not provided.
Golding told reporters that he is against people returning to the government who have had serious allegations of corruption levelled at them without the accusations being cleared.
‘I think each case has to be assessed on its own merit. There are situations where somebody who holds a ministerial position may do something that is not quite right and, because we are trying to set a standard of good behaviour and proper governance, that cannot be ignored, but it may not be so egregious as to warrant permanent exclusion of that person from their career.
‘On the other hand, there are some things that are sufficiently serious and that person really should not be a public figure any longer. They should not be responsible for any aspect of the affairs of the nation. They should not be privy to State secrets and exercising executive authority in a portfolio affecting the lives and interests of the Jamaican people,’ Golding said.
Opposition spokesperson on finance Julian Robinson said that he too found Wheatley’s return to the Cabinet ironic.
‘I find it ironic that he was removed in 2018 after allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism related to him as minister of energy. For some time he remained out of the Cabinet – for seven years. I don’t know whether he had told the prime minister when he was being reappointed that he was the subject of an Integrity Commission investigation into illicit enrichment.
‘One wonders why would he be reappointed had he known that he was the subject of an investigation. We know that he is not alone. We know there are eight or nine Members of Parliament who are also the subject of investigations by the Integrity Commission for illicit enrichment. We call for those persons to declare themselves and hold up their hands,’ said Robinson.
Robinson said that the report indicated that Wheatley told the IC that he earned returns on a high-yield investment scheme but there was no evidence the scheme existed.
‘There were no records. More importantly, the explanation was not in Dr Wheatley’s statutory declarations for the entire period. He only raised it in 2024 as part of the investigation into illicit enrichment. Dr Wheatley would present one thing to the commission and then after an investigation it is found that it is totally opposite,’ Robinson said, adding that the report showed where Wheatley said he received rental income of approximately J$143 million (One Jamaica dollar=US$0.008 cents).
‘The Integrity Commission asked for the names of those tenants, receipts, et cetera. Dr Wheatley indicated that these persons were protected under the Data Protection Act and as such he could not provide that information. When he was pressed further, while he was able to provide some names and some substantiation, he could not substantiate $143 million which he claimed came from rental income,’ said Robinson.
In a statement, Wheatley has rejected as ‘false, inaccurate and grossly misleading’ the Integrity Commission’s claim and his lawyers have also reportedly written to the IC pointing to what they describe as inconsistencies in its report and conclusion.