The Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Against Cor­rup­tion (GOPAC) re­leased a re­port yes­ter­day on its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion against for­mer Plan­ning, Re­struc­tur­ing and Gen­der Af­fairs min­is­ter sen­a­tor Mary King. The re­port af­firms GOPAC's sup­port of King, a long-time mem­ber and sec­re­tary of the board. The re­port is an ac­count of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by GOPAC chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer and founder, John Williams, in­to cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions made against King by the Gov­ern­ment.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion took place from No­vem­ber 29 to De­cem­ber 1 last year. He said: "From the per­spec­tive of GOPAC, Ms King was act­ing in what she be­lieved to be the best in­ter­est of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. "GOPAC ful­ly sup­ports Ms King and will be re­tain­ing her as a mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive and the sec­re­tary of our board of di­rec­tors. "The fight against cor­rup­tion is an on­go­ing bat­tle in Trinidad and all around the world, and we are glad Ms King will con­tin­ue to be an ad­vo­cate against cor­rup­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go." King's ap­point­ment as a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter was re­voked by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards on the ad­vice of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

That fol­lowed al­le­ga­tions that she had been in­volved in the in­ap­pro­pri­ate award of a $100,000 con­tract to a com­pa­ny, Ix­anos, in which her fam­i­ly had an in­ter­est. GOPAC is an in­ter­na­tion­al net­work of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans ded­i­cat­ed to good gov­er­nance and com­bat­ing cor­rup­tion. Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion on the group's Web site, it pro­vides in­for­ma­tion and analy­sis, es­tab­lish­es in­ter­na­tion­al bench­marks and im­proves pub­lic aware­ness through a com­bi­na­tion of glob­al pres­sure and na­tion­al ac­tion.