Friday, November 20 2009

IT’s really no surprise to hear that Trinidad and Tobago has not improved in its score on the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as adjudged by local business people and foreign analysts.

The past year of revelations in the Uff Commission of Inquiry into Udecott by itself was surely enough to create a widespread perception among the citizenry that all is not well as regards accountability and transparency in these State projects. TT retained its same score as last year of 3.6, on a scale where zero represents the worst amount of perceived corruption, while 10 indicates the least corruption.

However while this country’s score did not change, the country actually fell by seven places in the global ranking of 180 countries from placing 72nd last year to position 79 this year.

The CPI indicated that Trinidad and Tobago tied with China, Burkina Faso and Swaziland, but fell far behind its Caribbean neighbours of Barbados at 20th spot with a score of 7.4, St Lucia at 22nd, St Vincent and the Grenadines at 31st and Dominica at 34th.

The world’s most honest country was New Zealand scoring 9.4, followed closely by Denmark with 9.3, while the most corrupt country was Somalia on 1.1.

Of course, anyone could seek to downplay the CPI report by arguing that it is merely based on a perception of corruption, but this point was addressed squarely by Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute (TTTI) chairman, Victor Hart, who called for more State and private funding for more detailed, objective research to be done into assessing local corruption. We heartily endorse his call.

Mr Hart warned that corruption is a cancer that can take over a society, and at its most extreme, even lead to organised crime financing political parties and thereby taking over the State.

Citizens would do well to heed the message of the TTTI chairman that corruption isn’t harmless, but actually diverts money into private pockets and away from worthy projects such as schools, hospitals and pipe-borne water. Mr Hart said, “It not only perpetuates poverty among our less privileged citizens but distorts our economy and can even undermine the judiciary and our very democracy.”

This assertion should certainly be food for thought for all our citizens.

He said this is a society that has had a high tolerance for corruption due to the frequency of petty corruption in the lives of ordinary citizens, which we would venture to guess would include illicit payments for drivers licences, building planning approval, and house inspection for electrical wiring. We would now ponder whether or not recent claims of conflict of interest, such as made in the case of Udecott, are a sufficient wake-up call to shake the population out of their, sometimes, complacency to corruption.

Mr Hart also expressed concern that the Integrity Commission has not been appointed for the past nine months, as a guard against white collar crime.

Among other things, he called for procurement reform, regulation of political party funding, and the appointment of the Integrity Commission.

“More research needs to be done into the actual extent of corruption, how it occurs and how best to combat it,” urged Mr Hart.

TI figures show that Trinidad and Tobago had in 2001 scored creditably at 5.3 at which time it ranked at 31st in the world, but since then the ranking has generally been downward, to reach the current position of 79th.

The general picture is certainly not one to be proud of.

Unfortunately, so far in some respects the Government has been moving in the wrong direction with a brazen attempt recently to expose whistle-blowers in their Integrity in Public Life (Amendment) Bill 2009, which provision they only dropped in the face of a huge public outcry. Again, the Government recently rejected Opposition calls to adopt the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, claiming it to be unnecessary.

So the past year has seen an unfortunate combination of perceived corruption surrounding the State-owned Udecott and the Government’s continued failure to really champion the laws and agencies of public accountability. If the Government wants to clean up the country’s image, they could well heed Mr Hart’s call to appoint the Integrity Commission; improve the Prevention of Corruption Act 1987, Freedom of Information Act and procurement rules; and pass laws to protect whistle-blowers.