Em­ploy­ees of the State-or any pub­lic au­thor­i­ty-who have a le­git­i­mate com­plaint that the em­ploy­er is in breach of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act may write the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in strict con­fi­dence and with­out fear of reprisal. Em­ploy­ees may make good-faith re­ports, if their em­ploy­er has failed to cor­rect or re­dress the abuse of state re­sources or of im­prop­er con­duct.

The com­mis­sion draws a line at gos­sip and mis­chief. A fine of $500,000 and a term of im­pris­on­ment for ten years is the penal­ty for any per­son who know­ing­ly and mis­chie­vous­ly makes or caus­es to be made a false re­port, or mis­leads the com­mis­sion by giv­ing false in­for­ma­tion.

Sec­tion 42A of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act states:

"An em­ploy­ee of the State, a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty or any oth­er body shall not be dis­missed, sus­pend­ed, de­mot­ed, dis­ci­plined, ha­rassed, de­nied a ben­e­fit or oth­er­wise neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed be­cause:

He/she, act­ing in good faith and on the ba­sis of a rea­son­able be­lief has-

• No­ti­fied the com­mis­sion that his em­ploy­er or any oth­er per­son has con­tra­vened or is about to con­tra­vene this act

• Done or stat­ed the in­ten­tion of do­ing any­thing that is re­quired to be done in or­der to avoid hav­ing any per­son con­tra­vene this act

• Re­fused to do or stat­ed the in­ten­tion of re­fus­ing to do any­thing that is in con­tra­ven­tion of this act

• His/her em­ploy­er or any oth­er per­son be­lieves that he/she will do some­thing de­scribed at (A)."

The ra­tio­nale be­hind em­pow­er­ing eth­i­cal pub­lic of­fi­cials to ap­proach the com­mis­sion in strict con­fi­dence and with­out fear of reprisal is that em­ploy­ees are usu­al­ly the first to re­alise that some­thing maybe se­ri­ous­ly wrong. As such, gov­ern­ment min­istries, statu­to­ry boards, agen­cies and com­pa­nies in which the State has sub­stan­tial in­ter­est are re­quired to es­tab­lish clear pro­ce­dures, prac­tices and chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion so that em­ploy­ees are able to dis­close il­le­gal or un­eth­i­cal prac­tices with­out fear.

Con­tact IC

Write or e-mail us at com­plaints@in­tegri­ty­commis­sion.org.tt or reg­is­trar@in­tegri­ty­commis­sion.org.tt if you have ev­i­dence of a vi­o­la­tion of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act by per­sons who ex­er­cise pub­lic func­tions. You may al­so send com­ments and let­ters to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Fourth floor, UTC Fi­nan­cial Cen­tre, 82 In­de­pen­dence Square, Port–of-Spain.