By Andre Bagoo Wednesday, November 25 2009

GOVERNMENTS should release the accounting details of government to government loans in order to ensure a better culture of transparency, the director of an anti-corruption think tank in the Netherlands Professor Victor van Kommer urged yesterday.

Addressing the Business Action Against Corruption forum held aboard the Serenade of the Seas cruise ship docked in Port-of-Spain, van Kommer, a director of the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation, argued that government to government loans were key parts of encouraging transparency.

“You have to publish these things to make them transparent,” van Kommer said of government to government loans, in response to a question asked by a member of the audience.

In Trinidad and Tobago, several large scale projects, executed by the state-owned Udecott, have been done under arrangements stemming from government to government loans.

Most notably, Udecott has built the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre and the Academy for the Performing Arts as part of a government to government loan with China.

In April 2008, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the loan for the Port-of-Spain Academy and the San Fernando Academy was US$100 million. This month, at the opening of the academy in Port-of-Spain, Manning said the cost for both academies was US$130 million. There have been unsuccessful calls for the government to government arrangement to be made public.

Van Kommer also urged that there was a need for reform of the way financial accounts are presented. “We also have to simplify them,” he said. He noted that there is a need to tackle the lack of integrity in everyday life situations. “Corruption is really the end of the scale. But it starts with non-integrity... Integrity should be part of performance management and quality control.” Also speaking at the same event was Vijay Poonsamy, barrister and vice president of Eithad Airways of the United Arab Emirates, who urged participants to understand the need for integrity in everyday life as a means of preventing corruption.

“A country’s governance influences its corporate governance and vice versa,” he said. “Both require people of integrity, people who do right without fear or favour.” He noted that US$1 trillion in bribes is exchanged every year.

Tagbo Agbazue, the director of the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship, noted that more must be done to combat corruption than just putting public officials in jail.

“Many times you hear heads of government boasting, ‘I’ve put the head of the police in prison’ or ‘I’ve put five government ministers in prison’. But they must also put measures in place to help support national and sectoral anti-corruption strategies.”