Jamaica’s sixteen-year-old Financial Investigations Division (FID), a department created within the country’s Ministry of Finance to track and expose financial misdeeds within state agencies is reporting “quiet success” in its pursuits, a circumstance that strengthens the case being made for it to have greater independence, budgetary and human resources capacity and autonomy, according to a recent report in the Jamaica Gleaner.
The Gleaner quotes Minister within the Ministry of Finance Fayval Williams as saying recently that such a move is critical to giving the agency the operational leeway in expanding investigations that may involve other domestic and overseas partners.
The lobby for an autonomous FID which appears to point to greater seriousness on the part of the Jamaican authorities to rein in financial crimes involving state assets has been intensifying since earlier this year and the Gleaner quotes Williams as saying that such a move would fit in with international best practices.
