Asha Javeed & Shal­iza Has­sanali

In T&T, most cor­rup­tion cas­es, if they even get there, stop at the courts.

And that’s be­fore mil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars are spent on au­dit re­ports, le­gal fees and com­mis­sions of in­quiry.

Over the past 30 years, politi­cians have lib­er­al­ly dipped in­to the coun­try’s purse to pur­sue cor­rup­tion-re­lat­ed mat­ters, yet pros­e­cu­tion of such cas­es re­mains low while most are even­tu­al­ly dis­con­tin­ued or dis­missed.

On­ly last year, Jus­tice Ricky Rahim ruled that the for­mer board of di­rec­tors and CEO of the Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT) breached their fidu­cia­ry du­ties by rub­ber-stamp­ing a $34 mil­lion con­tract for the failed Life­S­port pro­gramme in 2012. The court found that the board sim­ply fol­lowed min­is­te­r­i­al di­rec­tives rather than act­ing in the com­pa­ny’s best in­ter­ests, and each of the 14 di­rec­tors, as well as the for­mer chief ex­ec­u­tive, had to pay dam­ages of $40,000 each, to­talling $560,000.

The con­se­quences of cor­rup­tion in T&T have the abil­i­ty to erode pub­lic trust in the jus­tice sys­tem, as decades lat­er, cor­rup­tion cas­es in­volv­ing for­mer politi­cians, MPs, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, ex­ec­u­tives, busi­ness­men and con­trac­tors, brought be­fore the courts as high-pro­file mat­ters, are still pend­ing.

Oth­ers had their mat­ters dis­missed, while many died await­ing the out­come of their cas­es.

But politi­cians have al­so made uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions on cor­rup­tion mat­ters.

In 2016, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), dis­con­tin­ued a bil­lion-dol­lar law­suit against for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Petrotrin Mal­colm Jones. The case, over the com­pa­ny’s failed low-sul­phur diesel plant, was brought against Jones un­der for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. Petrotrin’s in­vest­ment in that plant, as well as the Gas to Liq­uids (GTL) plant, un­der Jones’ tenure, is of­ten cit­ed as the rea­son for the com­pa­ny’s mas­sive debt. Jones died one year lat­er.

Ten years lat­er, last Jan­u­ary, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie an­nounced that he was of­fi­cial­ly end­ing civ­il lit­i­ga­tion by the State in­to the CL Fi­nan­cial (CLF) group even as he de­scribed it as the largest case of fraud and fi­nan­cial tragedy in T&T and pos­si­bly the Caribbean. In his state­ment to Par­lia­ment, he said that the State had spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly $32 bil­lion res­cu­ing CLF and its sub­sidiaries, as well as on le­gal, ac­count­ing and ad­min­is­tra­tive mat­ters linked to the col­lapse. At this point, he said the State could no longer jus­ti­fy con­tin­u­ing cost­ly civ­il pro­ceed­ings that did not yield re­sults.

In 2009, he was then the PNM’s at­tor­ney gen­er­al and had hired foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tor Bob Lindquist to look in­to CLF and, in 2017, while in pri­vate prac­tice, he had rep­re­sent­ed CLF share­hold­ers briefly. Last month, the Cen­tral Bank told Guardian Me­dia that its 15-year civ­il case in­to CLF—which be­gan un­der for­mer Gov­er­nor Ewart Williams and con­tin­ued through for­mer Gov­er­nors Jwala Ram­bar­ran and Dr Alvin Hi­laire—had since been dis­con­tin­ued. The Sir An­tho­ny Col­man Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (COE) re­port, which was in the hands of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard as he pur­sued a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the group and its of­fi­cers, has since been laid in Par­lia­ment.

Po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sion-mak­ing on the com­po­si­tion of the coun­try’s state boards and the es­tab­lish­ment and even­tu­al clo­sure of some have al­so re­sult­ed in mis­man­age­ment and wastage amount­ing to bil­lions with­out con­se­quence. Among them are Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed, British West In­dies Air­ways (BWIA) and Petrotrin. Tax­pay­ers were not on­ly prop­ping up state en­ter­pris­es, but mon­ey was al­so used to pay VSEP pack­ages to em­ploy­ees. And in the case of BWIA, tax dol­lars were used to re­cap­i­talise a new en­ti­ty, Caribbean Air­lines.

But through­out the past 20 years, sev­er­al state en­ter­pris­es have been closed down—Ca­roni Green, Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices (GISL), the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EF­CL) and, in 2024, the Sec­ondary Roads Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and Im­prove­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (SR­RIC)—while oth­ers, such as SporTT and the Es­tate Man­age­ment Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EM­BD), re­port­ed­ly haem­or­rhaged mil­lions in bad in­vest­ments.

Mean­while, the coun­try’s in­sti­tu­tions con­tin­ue to flag con­cerns. Last year, the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go (FI­UTT) flagged 1,523 sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions and ac­tiv­i­ty re­ports amount­ing to more than TT$1.2 bil­lion, which, in its view, high­light se­vere threats from mon­ey laun­der­ing, tax crimes and or­gan­ised white-col­lar fraud.

Cas­es that fell flat

Key cor­rup­tion cas­es pur­sued by the PNM fell flat, with the State still em­broiled in le­gal mat­ters.

In 2020, the about-turn of British King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son, from the State’s co­op­er­at­ing wit­ness to a re­luc­tant one, re­sult­ed in him be­ing fined just $250,000 for al­leged­ly con­spir­ing with Anand Ram­lo­gan and for­mer op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen to breach Sec­tion 3 of the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act and $2 mil­lion for al­leged­ly con­spir­ing with the duo to breach Sec­tion 45 of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act. Nel­son was in­dict­ed on three charges, one of which was mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

The charges against Nel­son, Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen arose out of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­most $1 bil­lion in le­gal fees paid to pri­vate le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers who rep­re­sent­ed the State and state com­pa­nies in le­gal pro­ceed­ings dur­ing Ram­lo­gan’s tenure be­tween 2010 and 2015. The mis­be­hav­iour charge was dis­con­tin­ued af­ter Nel­son en­tered in­to a plea agree­ment with the DPP’s of­fice in ex­change for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

How­ev­er, in 2022, Gas­pard dis­con­tin­ued the State’s pros­e­cu­tion of Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen since Nel­son was un­will­ing to give ev­i­dence un­til his claim for breach of in­dem­ni­ty and dam­ages was con­clud­ed. Gas­pard said Nel­son was al­leg­ing that he had been giv­en in­dem­ni­ty in re­turn for pro­vid­ing a state­ment con­cern­ing “this case” against both men.

In his civ­il claim, Nel­son sought al­most $100 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for al­leged mul­ti­ple breach­es of the agree­ment with the State. The tri­al of Nel­son’s mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar law­suit over the gov­ern­ment’s al­leged breach of an in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment be­gan in Jan­u­ary 2024.

On the heels of Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen’s case be­ing dis­con­tin­ued, UNC Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee was charged with mis­be­hav­iour and con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the gov­ern­ment in 2022. The charges sur­round­ed the pur­chase of a $2 mil­lion Mer­cedes-Benz and whether a $1.4 mil­lion tax ex­emp­tion on the ve­hi­cle may have ben­e­fit­ed a par­ty fi­nancier. Po­lice be­gan a probe to de­ter­mine whether Lee, an op­po­si­tion MP at the time, used the ex­emp­tion to ben­e­fit a busi­ness­man and UNC fi­nancier and whether Lee was ever in pos­ses­sion of the ve­hi­cle.

Days be­fore the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, Lee was cleared of fraud charges re­lat­ed to the tax ex­emp­tion on his ve­hi­cle as a par­lia­men­tar­i­an.

Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles dis­missed the charges af­ter up­hold­ing a no-case sub­mis­sion pre­sent­ed by Lee’s team, led by Wayne Sturge and Mario Mer­ritt.

Charles ruled that the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to sus­tain the charges or pro­ceed to tri­al.

She al­so ac­quit­ted busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi of Sport Out­let Ltd, who faced a joint charge with Lee for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud.

Six months af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed Hous­ing Min­is­ter, Lee was re-ar­rest­ed on the con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charges that had been dropped. This mat­ter is still pend­ing be­fore the court.

Politi­cians at the Cen­tre

In 2006, Er­ic Williams, then Port-of-Spain South MP, re­signed as en­er­gy min­is­ter fol­low­ing a fi­nan­cial scan­dal in which it was al­leged that he ac­cept­ed $75,000 in bribes in re­turn for award­ing con­tracts to lo­cal coun­cil­lor Dhansam Dhan­sook’s seis­mic project in 2004.

Williams faced sev­en charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice for cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing the mon­ey.

He was one of two gov­ern­ment min­is­ters un­der then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning’s ad­min­is­tra­tion ac­cused of bribery by Dhan­sook.

The oth­er min­is­ter was Franklin Khan, who was charged with six counts of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice for cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing $120,500 in bribes from Dhan­sook in ex­change for con­tracts.

Dur­ing the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Khan re­signed from his min­is­te­r­i­al post and as PNM chair­man.

The charges against Williams were dis­missed in 2008 by Mag­is­trate Lu­ci­na Car­de­nas-Ra­goo­nanan, who de­scribed Dhan­sook’s ev­i­dence as vague and un­be­liev­able.

Two years lat­er, DPP Roger Gas­pard with­drew the charges against Khan, say­ing the State could no longer re­ly on Dhan­sook’s ev­i­dence. Khan broke down in tears, say­ing the case was tor­ture for him and his fam­i­ly. He passed away in 2021.

In 2013, Dhan­sook was charged with 13 of­fences of per­vert­ing the course of pub­lic jus­tice for al­leged­ly giv­ing false ev­i­dence against Khan and Williams.

His mat­ter is still be­fore the court.

For­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald faced mul­ti­ple charges dur­ing her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

Re­gard­ed as a ded­i­cat­ed fight­er, Mc­Don­ald, who served as Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip and MP, found her­self at the cen­tre of con­tro­ver­sy in 2010 when she be­came the sub­ject of an In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­gard­ing a $375,000 cheque made out to the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion some 10 days be­fore the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion ex­on­er­at­ed Mc­Don­ald of the al­le­ga­tions in De­cem­ber 2013 but re­opened its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in 2015, cit­ing new in­for­ma­tion.

In 2019, Mc­Don­ald was charged with sev­en of­fences con­cern­ing the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion and ac­cused of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

Mc­Don­ald was stripped of her po­si­tions as PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion min­is­ter by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

In March 2022, the DPP dis­con­tin­ued one of Mc­Don­ald’s charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice re­lat­ing to the al­leged ap­proval of a $2.3 mil­lion project at Mar­cano Quar­ry in Laven­tille.

How­ev­er, lat­er that year, an in­dict­ment was filed against Mc­Don­ald on six counts of mon­ey laun­der­ing, con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

At the time of her death in 2023, Mc­Don­ald, 65, was still fight­ing to clear her name of cor­rup­tion.

High Pro­file White Col­lar Cas­es

Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port case

The Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port cas­es were re­gard­ed as the biggest in this coun­try’s his­to­ry, as al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, bid-rig­ging, kick­backs, bid in­fla­tion, po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and fraud plagued the $1.6 bil­lion air­port project since its in­cep­tion in 1996.

The tri­als have al­so been the longest.

Then prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day ap­point­ed a task force to ex­pe­dite the air­port project.

How­ev­er, a 1997 re­port by re­tired Jus­tice Lennox Deyals­ingh re­vealed that a main con­trac­tor on the project was guilty of un­eth­i­cal con­duct and called for the award­ed con­tracts to be scrapped.

This nev­er hap­pened.

Three years lat­er, foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tor Robert Lindquist was tasked with in­ves­ti­gat­ing the project by then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj.

Lindquist’s re­port al­leged­ly un­cov­ered price-fix­ing, bid-rig­ging, du­pli­cate con­tract pay­ments, false in­voic­ing, de­fec­tive pric­ing, com­min­gling of con­tracts and con­flicts of in­ter­est.

The al­le­ga­tions were de­scribed as the biggest fi­nan­cial scan­dal. Four cas­es be­came the fo­cus fol­low­ing Lindquist’s re­port.

In the first case, a group of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and busi­ness­peo­ple were charged with of­fences re­lat­ed to the al­leged theft of $19 mil­lion.

The group in­clud­ed busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh (de­ceased), for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Rus­sell Hug­gins, for­mer Nipdec chair­man Ed­ward Bay­ley (now de­ceased), Mar­itime Gen­er­al In­sur­ance ex­ec­u­tives John Smith (now de­ceased), Steve Fer­gu­son, Bar­bara Gomes, Am­rith Ma­haraj and Kuei Tung’s then com­pan­ion, Re­nee Pierre.

An­oth­er case in­volved a £25,000 bribe al­leged­ly paid to for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and his wife, Oma, by for­mer min­is­ter Car­los John and Gal­barans­ingh as an al­leged in­duce­ment re­lat­ing to the air­port project.

The gov­ern­ment al­so be­gan lit­i­ga­tion in the US to re­cov­er US$37 mil­lion from those ac­cused of cor­rup­tion.

Ini­tial­ly, there were 56 de­fen­dants in the law­suit.

Over the years, some ac­cept­ed plea deals.

By the time the State filed its fifth amend­ed com­plaint in 2007, on­ly Fer­gu­son, Kuei Tung and Raul Gutier­rez Jr re­mained. The State main­tained that they had con­spired with oth­ers to cor­rupt the bid­ding process on two con­struc­tion pack­ages, as well as the air­port main­te­nance con­tract.

These mat­ters dragged on for years.

Af­ter wait­ing 18 years for a de­ter­mi­na­tion, the Pan­days, John and Gal­barans­ingh were freed in 2023 when Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard an­nounced his de­ci­sion to ex­er­cise his con­sti­tu­tion­al dis­cre­tion to dis­con­tin­ue the charges against the four­some.

Gas­pard said his de­ci­sion was based on the low prob­a­bil­i­ty of se­cur­ing con­vic­tions.

Pan­day and Gal­barans­ingh died in 2024.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Unit­ed States judges up­held the US$131 mil­lion judg­ment in the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port mat­ter.

The judges re­viewed Fer­gu­son’s ap­peal.

Fer­gu­son ap­pealed the judg­ment un­der which he, Kuei Tung and Gutier­rez Jr were or­dered to pay US$131,318,840.47 af­ter it was found they had en­gaged in a decades-long scheme in­volv­ing con­tracts to build the new air­port.

Fer­gu­son’s le­gal team ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the rul­ing, say­ing they in­tend­ed to ex­er­cise their right to seek a re­view be­fore the Flori­da Supreme Court.

EM­BD

The EM­BD mat­ter in­volved two el­e­ments: a civ­il mat­ter and a crim­i­nal mat­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to a 2020 sta­tus re­port on the EM­BD mat­ter, a top for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial al­leged­ly “or­ches­trat­ed a scheme that re­sult­ed in sig­nif­i­cant funds be­ing se­cured and spent by EM­BD in the six weeks be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015, ap­prox­i­mate­ly $549 mil­lion.”

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the of­fi­cial was able to im­ple­ment the al­leged fraud­u­lent scheme with the as­sis­tance of com­pa­nies owned by ap­par­ent­ly close ac­quain­tances, which were in­vit­ed to ten­der for a road con­tract.

“By the time the ten­der had come around, the EM­BD’s es­ti­mates for the cost of the roads had been ar­bi­trar­i­ly in­flat­ed to $416,340,445 by (name called). This meant the bid­ders could bid high­er,” the re­port said.

British in­ves­ti­ga­tor Kate McMa­hon, who was a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cer, was con­tract­ed and fund­ed by the gov­ern­ment and worked along­side the TTPS through the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) on sev­er­al po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions. McMa­hon’s team al­so used Ed Jenk­ins KC for le­gal guid­ance in build­ing the cas­es.

In 2020, a Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive re­port­ed on an email from McMa­hon to the TTPS in which she raised con­cerns about the EM­BD mat­ter.

At the time, she said her team had in­ten­si­fied com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions in “re­la­tion to the cas­es we are seek­ing to charge.” She in­di­cat­ed there were three cas­es be­ing ac­tive­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed (EM­BD, Life­S­port and EF­CL) and “two which are cur­rent­ly be­ing as­sessed for charge by the DPP and the third which is at an ad­vanced stage and has war­rants to be ex­e­cut­ed which will, we be­lieve, re­veal mon­ey laun­der­ing and fund­ing for the 2015 elec­tion via gov­ern­ment con­tract fees.”

“There are rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.”

With the crim­i­nal as­pect on hold pend­ing the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, EM­BD has sought to re­cov­er tax­pay­er dol­lars through civ­il pro­ceed­ings known as the car­tel claim.

Last year, the Privy Coun­cil re­fused per­mis­sion to some of the con­trac­tors to ap­peal the Court of Ap­peal’s re­fusal to throw out the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar claim against them or or­der bet­ter par­tic­u­lars of the al­le­ga­tions.

The sub­stan­tive law­suit cen­tres on 12 con­tracts for the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of roads and in­fra­struc­ture award­ed to five con­trac­tors be­fore the Sep­tem­ber 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The con­trac­tors—TN Ram­nauth and Com­pa­ny Ltd, its CEO Taradauth Ram­nauth, Kall Co and Mooti­lal Ramhit and Sons Con­tract­ing Ltd—had ini­ti­at­ed pro­ceed­ings against the state-owned spe­cial-pur­pose com­pa­ny for the al­most $200 mil­lion bal­ance al­leged­ly owed on their re­spec­tive con­tracts.

EM­BD coun­ter­sued the con­trac­tors, claim­ing they con­spired with for­mer min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal, for­mer EM­BD CEO Gary Par­mas­sar, for­mer di­vi­sion­al man­ag­er Mad­hoo Bal­roop and en­gi­neer An­drew Walk­er to cor­rupt­ly ob­tain the con­tracts.

Al­so sued by EM­BD are Fides Ltd, Na­mal­co Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd and LCB Con­trac­tors Ltd.

Life­S­port

It has been 10 years since the con­tro­ver­sial Life­S­port pro­gramme end­ed, and no one has yet been held ac­count­able.

In a 2020 Po­lice Sta­tus Re­port on the mat­ter, the TTPS said it had ob­tained more than 25 pro­duc­tion or­ders against in­di­vid­u­als and bank­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­ter­viewed nu­mer­ous wit­ness­es, “which has gen­er­at­ed valu­able new ev­i­dence in sup­port of the al­le­ga­tions.”

“A to­tal sum of $349,500,000 was al­lo­cat­ed to Life­S­port be­tween 2012 and 2014, fund­ed through a com­bi­na­tion of bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions made by the Min­istry of Sport and bank loans, un­der­tak­en in con­sul­ta­tion with the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my. A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of those funds is al­leged to have been mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed by many in­di­vid­u­als at all lev­els of the pro­gramme. This in­cludes a num­ber of high-rank­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials al­leged­ly fun­nelling mil­lions of dol­lars out of the pro­gramme to pur­chase re­al es­tate, boats, ve­hi­cles and fund wed­dings, among oth­er things,” the doc­u­ment said.

A 2014 au­dit con­duct­ed by the Min­istry of Fi­nance’s Cen­tral Au­dit Com­mit­tee claimed that the pro­gramme had been rid­dled with fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, had co­or­di­na­tors with crim­i­nal back­grounds, in­volved mas­sive fraud, mil­lions in mis­spent funds, ghost cen­tres, ghost par­tic­i­pants, im­prop­er pro­cure­ment and ma­jor theft of state funds.

While mil­lions were lost through what was de­scribed as padded in­voic­es to con­trac­tors, the $34 mil­lion pay­ment to ed­u­ca­tor Adol­phus Daniell to teach nu­mer­a­cy and tech­nol­o­gy to par­tic­i­pants in the pro­gramme was the sin­gle largest pay­ment made un­der the pro­gramme de­spite no work be­ing done.

When she laid the re­port in Par­lia­ment, then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had for­ward­ed a copy to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice.

Then sports min­is­ter Anil Roberts sub­se­quent­ly re­signed from the Cab­i­net and as D’Abadie/O’Meara MP on Ju­ly 31, 2014.

At the time, for­mer Life­S­port pro­gramme di­rec­tor Cor­nelius Price de­scribed the au­dit as “slop­py.”

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai, un­der whose re­mit the au­dit was un­der­tak­en, re­spond­ed:

“I am not aware of the con­text in which the al­le­ga­tion that the au­dit was slop­py is be­ing made, but all of the sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion is avail­able to sup­port the var­i­ous state­ments that were made in the au­dit. I ex­pect that a lot of al­le­ga­tions will be made by var­i­ous per­sons as­so­ci­at­ed with the pro­gramme in a di­rect or in­di­rect at­tempt to try to prove their in­no­cence or even to drag as many per­sons through the mud with them as pos­si­ble, but the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my stands by the re­sults of the au­dit and the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the se­nior of­fi­cers of the min­istry and its over­all po­si­tion in this mat­ter.”

In 2016, Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er ruled that the re­port should be sent back to the au­dit team. She did not sup­port the ar­gu­ment that the au­dit team had act­ed ir­ra­tional­ly or in bad faith.

T&T's fight against cor­rup­tion

Reg­is­ter­ing a score of 41 out of 100 in Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al's 2025 Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions In­dex (CPI) re­port, Trinidad and To­ba­go has shown min­i­mal progress in its fight against cor­rup­tion.

T&T’s scores have re­mained stag­nant at 41 or 42 over the past five years.

The score for T&T sits just be­low the re­gion­al av­er­age of 42 for the Amer­i­c­as.

The re­port, pub­lished in Feb­ru­ary, stat­ed that CPI used a scale of 0 (high­ly cor­rupt) to 100 (very clean) to mea­sure the cor­rup­tion lev­els in 182 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries world­wide.

In rank­ing the 182 coun­tries, the re­port placed T&T in po­si­tion 81.

The re­port showed that Bar­ba­dos was the least cor­rupt, scor­ing 68, among Caribbean coun­tries.

Trail­ing were the Ba­hamas with 64, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines 63, Do­mini­ca 60, St Lu­cia 59, Grena­da 56, Ja­maica 44, and Guyana 40.

“In the Amer­i­c­as, years of in­ac­tion by gov­ern­ments in ad­dress­ing cor­rup­tion have weak­ened democ­ra­cy and al­lowed the growth of or­gan­ised crime, with se­ri­ous im­pacts on hu­man rights and se­cu­ri­ty,” the re­port stat­ed.

“The vast ma­jor­i­ty of coun­tries are fail­ing to keep cor­rup­tion un­der con­trol,” the re­port stat­ed.

It al­so stat­ed that they were see­ing a con­cern­ing pic­ture of long-term de­cline in lead­er­ship to tack­le cor­rup­tion.

In re­view­ing the re­port, T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) stat­ed that these stag­nant scores in­di­cat­ed that while com­mit­ments and ini­tia­tives to strength­en in­tegri­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and trans­paren­cy ex­ist, gaps in im­ple­men­ta­tion and en­force­ment have pre­vent­ed these ef­forts from trans­lat­ing in­to per­cep­ti­ble im­prove­ments in pub­lic sec­tor gov­er­nance.

The in­sti­tute called for the im­me­di­ate procla­ma­tion and op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act, strength­ened en­force­ment of pro­cure­ment laws and clos­ing loop­holes that un­der­mine over­sight.