Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) scored 41 out of 100 in the 2025 Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions In­dex (CPI), rank­ing 81st out of 182 coun­tries. The coun­try’s score has re­mained stag­nant at 41 or 42 over the past five years.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, T&T’s score sits just be­low the re­gion­al av­er­age of 42 for the Amer­i­c­as, high­light­ing min­i­mal progress in the re­gion’s col­lec­tive fight against cor­rup­tion.

In a me­dia re­lease, the T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) said the stag­nant score in­di­cates 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.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go’s un­changed CPI score of 41 re­flects long-stand­ing gaps be­tween com­mit­ments and ac­tion. Mean­ing­ful progress re­quires mov­ing be­yond leg­is­la­tion on pa­per to im­ple­men­ta­tion in prac­tice,” TT­TI said.

The in­sti­tute called for the im­me­di­ate procla­ma­tion and op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act, en­abling in­di­vid­u­als to re­port wrong­do­ing safe­ly and re­quir­ing in­sti­tu­tions to re­spond. With­out ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tions, cor­rup­tion re­mains hid­den, and ac­count­abil­i­ty is weak­ened.

Equal­ly ur­gent, TT­TI said, is strength­en­ing en­force­ment of pub­lic pro­cure­ment laws and clos­ing loop­holes that un­der­mine over­sight. “The Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion must be ad­e­quate­ly re­sourced and in­su­lat­ed from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, while ex­emp­tions and high thresh­olds that al­low con­tracts to es­cape scruti­ny should be re­viewed,” the re­lease stat­ed.

TT­TI al­so urged the ad­vance­ment of long-de­layed cam­paign fi­nance re­forms to en­sure trans­par­ent po­lit­i­cal fi­nanc­ing, clear spend­ing lim­its, donor dis­clo­sure, and in­de­pen­dent en­force­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly as or­gan­ised crime in­creas­ing­ly tar­gets elec­toral sys­tems across the re­gion.

How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed the in­sti­tute’s cred­i­bil­i­ty, claim­ing it on­ly emerges when the UNC is in gov­ern­ment to act like a PNM par­ty group. “This or­gan­i­sa­tion was asleep for the past ten years while the PNM wast­ed over 600 bil­lion dol­lars,” she said.

In re­sponse, TT­TI em­pha­sised that the re­port is pre­pared and re­leased an­nu­al­ly by Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al, its par­ent or­gan­i­sa­tion. “The TT­TI, as a chap­ter, on­ly com­mu­ni­cates the re­sults, which we have done every year. We do not have any­thing else to add to our state­ment in re­sponse to this com­ment by the PM,” the in­sti­tute said.

Last year, TT­TI chair­man Don­na Jack-Hill called for stronger cit­i­zen en­gage­ment in shap­ing so­lu­tions to the cli­mate cri­sis.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the stag­nant CPI score re­flects long-stand­ing weak­ness­es in both pass­ing and en­forc­ing key leg­is­la­tion. “The chal­lenge is not just pass­ing the law but en­forc­ing the law. That is where we have fall­en short,” he said.

Ra­goonath cit­ed de­lays in en­act­ing pro­cure­ment rules, whistle­blow­er pro­tec­tions, and cam­paign fi­nance re­forms, not­ing that gov­ern­ments of­ten promise an­ti-cor­rup­tion mea­sures dur­ing cam­paigns but fail to fol­low through. “We have talked about whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion since be­fore 2010 … 16 years and count­ing, and still the same re­sults. Gov­ern­ments do things to win elec­tions … what we need is fol­low-through af­ter the elec­tions,” he said.

He em­pha­sised that mean­ing­ful progress re­quires po­lit­i­cal will, strict en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing laws, and clos­ing gaps in leg­is­la­tion, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion can­not be held re­spon­si­ble for past fail­ures.