While Prime Minister Godwin Friday did not explicitly state whether the Integrity Commission will have the specific legal power to investigate past administrations. The government has established other mechanisms to investigate the previous administrations’s actions and has committed to broad accountability for what they described as the “mess” they inherited.
The new government has introduced the Rapid Assessment Committee which is currently investigating statutory boards to evaluate how they were managed in the past. The Prime Minister stated that if this assessment reveals a need for further investigations into specific areas of mismanagement, the government will pursue them.
Friday emphasized that there will be “proper assessments” of how the government functioned during the previous 25-year administration. He described this as a “responsible part of being in government” and noted that the process of identifying people to conduct these assessments is already in progress.
While its retroactive powers are not detailed, the primary function mentioned for the commission is to require asset declarations from current ministers and senior officials to build public trust and transparency. The administration is currently benchmarking other regional examples to determine the best way to implement this.
Friday said the government is already looking into how “millions of dollars” earmarked for repairs in the Southern Grenadines were spent by the prior administration, citing a lack of visible impact.
The Prime Minister has pledged that the Integrity Commission will be fully established in less than five years.