DR HAMID GHANY

Two Tues­days ago, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute held an An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Con­fer­ence at which a wide range of is­sues were dis­cussed. The up­shot of the con­fer­ence was re­al­ly about how to change the cul­ture of cor­rup­tion that has ex­ist­ed in the eyes of so many peo­ple in this so­ci­ety when it comes to mat­ters of pub­lic pol­i­cy and pub­lic pro­cure­ment. This was recog­nised as far back as 1974 by the Wood­ing Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion in their re­port at para­graph 235 as fol­lows : "235. One of the root caus­es of the grow­ing lack of faith in the con­ven­tion­al po­lit­i­cal process is the wide­spread be­lief that cor­rup­tion is rife among those who hold high po­lit­i­cal of­fice. No proof has been forth­com­ing of any acts of cor­rup­tion, but we agree that sus­pi­cions have not been un­rea­son­ably aroused.

Such sus­pi­cions should as far as pos­si­ble be re­moved if pub­lic ser­vice is to be pre­served as an ho­n­ourable ca­reer for tal­ent­ed cit­i­zens." This com­men­tary was made as part of the rec­om­men­da­tions by the Wood­ing Com­mis­sion for the es­tab­lish­ment of what they called a " Par­lia­men­tary In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion". As a con­se­quence of that rec­om­men­da­tion, the Gov­ern­ment of the day in­clud­ed an In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in the re­pub­li­can con­sti­tu­tion in 1976. How­ev­er, that Com­mis­sion would re­main an en­ti­ty on pa­per un­til there was a change of gov­ern­ment in 1986 and sup­port­ing leg­is­la­tion was en­act­ed in 1987 to give ef­fect to the pro­vi­sions of the con­sti­tu­tion. Fur­ther leg­isla­tive en­hance­ments were made in 2000 that have laid the plat­form for the op­er­a­tion of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to­day.

What has hap­pened over the years is that the cul­ture of cor­rup­tion has be­come chal­lenged by a de­vel­op­ment and en­hance­ment of in­sti­tu­tions of scruti­ny and over­sight that have been added to the tra­di­tion­al fo­rums of com­mis­sions of in­quiry, the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al. These ad­di­tions in­clude an­oth­er Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee for state en­ter­pris­es, the cre­ation of the of­fice of om­buds­man, the cre­ation of new de­part­men­tal joint se­lect com­mit­tees of Par­lia­ment, and the cre­ation of an Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion. The col­lec­tive re­al­i­ty of these in­sti­tu­tions com­ing on­to the na­tion­al stage is such that the be­hav­iour and con­duct of pub­lic of­fi­cials can now be chal­lenged through for­mal process­es on a wider scale.

The deep­er is­sue is whether these in­sti­tu­tions are go­ing to be used to broad­en the scope for the op­er­a­tion of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide in this coun­try by the politi­cians to score po­lit­i­cal points, while leav­ing the ac­tion­able out­comes in a state of lim­bo. Will there be re­al penal­ties be­ing im­posed on pub­lic of­fi­cials who have been found to have done wrong, or will the ca­pac­i­ty of the State be chal­lenged by the broad-based use of le­gal and con­sti­tu­tion­al tech­ni­cal­i­ties to such an ex­tent that ac­tion be­comes im­pos­si­ble. There are many pub­lic in­ter­est chal­lenges that con­front these process­es such as ju­di­cial re­view, con­flicts of in­ter­est, sub ju­dice, of­fi­cial se­cre­cy and free­dom of in­for­ma­tion. The com­bined ef­fect of these types of chal­lenges is such that ad­ju­di­ca­tion can be­come prob­lem­at­ic.

Our Con­sti­tu­tion has three fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples that col­lec­tive­ly char­ac­terise our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es in the field of pub­lic pol­i­cy. Min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, par­lia­men­tary over­sight and ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence of­fer us a troi­ka of pub­lic pol­i­cy doc­trines that help our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment to work. Any com­pro­mise on any of these and there will be prob­lems. They all have their grey ar­eas. In the case of min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, how far does the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the min­is­ter stretch in re­la­tion to state boards? In the case of par­lia­men­tary over­sight, how ef­fec­tive can the com­mit­tees of Par­lia­ment be if there are chal­lenges of get­ting a quo­rum to have a sit­ting? In the case of ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence, how far can ju­di­cial ac­count­abil­i­ty for the ex­pen­di­ture of pub­lic mon­ey go while pre­serv­ing its in­de­pen­dence? These are all ac­tive is­sues that have had their fair share of pub­lic de­bate, but their out­comes re­main un­re­solved.

The pos­i­tive side of all of this is that the per­ceived cul­ture of cor­rup­tion that has ex­ist­ed since the state­ments in the Wood­ing Com­mis­sion Re­port is now find­ing new in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty to take it on.

A fre­quent oc­cur­rence in the pub­lic do­main is the call for the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate mat­ters from time to time. This has caused the Com­mis­sion it­self to come un­der scruti­ny. It is not­ed that the last three chair­men of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion have all had to re­sign on con­tro­ver­sial grounds.

The change in the cul­ture of cor­rup­tion has al­so af­fect­ed the last two prime min­is­ters of this coun­try who fell from of­fice dur­ing elec­tion cam­paigns where their stew­ard­ship was chal­lenged by peo­ple who were for­mer mem­bers of their Cab­i­nets and who turned against their for­mer lead­ers. The elec­torate re­spond­ed to the on­go­ing al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety in pub­lic of­fice which was test­ed at the bar of pub­lic opin­ion and the bat­tle­field of an elec­tion cam­paign proved to be too much. Their chal­lengers rep­re­sent­ed a shift in the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture that had not been seen in the lo­cal pol­i­tics be­fore the change of the mil­len­ni­um. In some re­spects, we have pro­gressed.