Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment will ful­ly sup­port the cre­ation of an an­ti-cor­rup­tion agency in T&T and promis­es re­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion will be forth­com­ing.Her dis­clo­sure was made by act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod dur­ing an an­ti-cor­rup­tion sem­i­nar host­ed by the T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

McLeod read the PM's speech, as she was at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al for Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez.The promise of the Gov­ern­ment's sup­port for an an­ti-cor­rup­tion agency came in re­sponse to a call from Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al deputy chair­man Bertrand de Speville. Dur­ing an ear­li­er pre­sen­ta­tion, De Speville, for­mer ad­vis­er to the Coun­cil of Eu­rope's Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Group on Cor­rup­tion, made a case for the for­ma­tion of an an­ti-cor­rup­tion com­mis­sion in T&T.

"I am most anx­ious to read the case made by de Speville for an an­ti-cor­rup­tion agency," the PM said in the speech. "Clear­ly, we will have to study the pro­pos­als very care­ful­ly and en­sure that what­ev­er is de­vel­oped is suit­ed to our cir­cum­stances. The prin­ci­ple, how­ev­er, is agreed. We give a com­mit­ment to re­view and in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion in this re­gard and ex­pect that a joint se­lect com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment will be ap­point­ed to re­fine the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, pur­suant to con­sen­sus and the lay­ing of a bill."

The PM said the es­tab­lish­ment of such a com­mis­sion will have to be thought­ful­ly de­vel­oped in con­sul­ta­tion with oth­er rel­e­vant state agen­cies, in­clud­ing the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice."But we recog­nise the val­ue of such an agency, which will have as its prin­ci­pal man­date the de­ter­rence of cor­rup­tion," she said."In­deed, it may be sug­gest­ed that a re­view of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion leg­is­la­tion can be done in the con­text of the wider an­ti-cor­rup­tion lega­cy."

The PM said the Gov­ern­ment is very con­scious the cur­rent In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, which gov­erns the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, needs to be ful­ly re­viewed, up­dat­ed and re­formed to give the com­mis­sion more teeth."We ac­cept that the act needs to be strength­ened if its pur­pose is to ef­fec­tive­ly com­bat cor­rup­tion," she said.

"One par­tic­u­lar area, in my view, on which we must place at­ten­tion, is the ques­tion of fail­ure to make the statu­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tions by per­sons so deemed un­der the act. "I have al­ready in­di­cat­ed to the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al that this re­view and strength­en­ing must be a pri­or­i­ty of our Gov­ern­ment."

The PM, in her ad­dress, al­so promised that the pro­cure­ment bill should be be­fore Par­lia­ment by April this year.She said the Gov­ern­ment al­so needs to con­sid­er the is­sue of cam­paign fi­nanc­ing.