PHILIP Ozouf’s 2022 election campaign has come under scrutiny following his sentencing for immigration offences involving the illegal employment of Rwandan nationals, after it emerged that some of the workers had put up posters and distributed leaflets at his request.
Ozouf was this week handed 120 hours community service and a £5,000 fine by the Royal Court following a two-year investigation by the Jersey Customs and Immigration Service.
It established that Ozouf and his co-accused, Savoy Hotel director Roberto Lora – who was also fined £5,000 – had arranged for legitimately employed hospitality workers to carry out work at the politician’s private laundry business, outside the conditions of their work permits.
And evidence gathered during the investigation confirmed that a number of Rwandan workers had been directed to undertake unauthorised work at Ozouf’s, and in one case at Lora’s, home addresses.
The Royal Court also heard that, when he stood for election in June 2022, “Ozouf asked some of the Rwandans to help him by putting up election posters and handing out leaflets in the Parish. They did this.”
There is no reference to this on Ozouf’s elections expenses form.
If candidates have friends or supporters who undertake such work voluntarily, it would not need to be listed as an expense – but if someone has been employed to help with the circulation of election material, then that expense should be included in the declaration submitted to the Judicial Greffe.
St Saviour Deputy Malcolm Ferey, who sits on the Privileges and Procedures Committee, said that election candidates’ campaigning and support should be “open and transparent”.
“It’s obviously not appropriate to use people who were expecting to be paid and then not paying them,” he told the JEP.
“If the promise was there, there should have been a donative value put on to the election expenses,” he continued.
“Otherwise it’s just not right and, while the court has made their decision as to Deputy Ozouf’s fate, it’s up to him now to search inside himself and see what the best thing to do is going forwards.”
PPC chair Deputy Steve Ahier noted that the Jersey Electoral Authority “may already have read the court case and be conducting their own investigation”.
“All election expenses should be declared,” he said.
Deputy Ferey also said that the JEA would be “the appropriate body to deal with such an inquiry”.
However, article 68 of the Elections (Jersey) Law 2002 states that: “No civil action, or criminal prosecution, arising from facts that have occurred at, or relate to, a public election or parish election, may be instituted under this Law after the expiration of 12 months from the date of the election.”
