“I here­by in­form this Sen­ate and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that I have of­fered my res­ig­na­tion to the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.”

Those words from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates opened up a much big­ger is­sue about ac­count­abil­i­ty in pub­lic life, and whether those who hold pub­lic of­fice un­der­stand that they must be held to a high­er stan­dard.

The is­sue cen­tres on John-Bates be­ing a mem­ber of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) while a state­ment sub­mit­ted by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­port­ed­ly con­tained tracked changes link­ing her and Faris Al-Rawi to its prepa­ra­tion.

This in­ci­dent rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about con­flict of in­ter­est and whether the par­lia­men­tary process was com­pro­mised. These are se­ri­ous mat­ters and should not be dis­missed as reg­u­lar po­lit­i­cal bac­cha­nal.

You see, pub­lic of­fice re­quires high­er stan­dards. A sen­a­tor, min­is­ter, MP, board mem­ber or se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cial is not there sim­ply to hold a ti­tle, de­fend a par­ty or en­joy the sta­tus that comes with the po­si­tion. These are po­si­tions of trust.

When peo­ple serve in these ca­pac­i­ties, they are ex­pect­ed to car­ry them­selves with a high­er lev­el of ho­n­our and hon­esty. At the end of the day, in­tegri­ty is what makes cit­i­zens con­fi­dent that in­sti­tu­tions are work­ing for the coun­try and not for friends, par­ty col­leagues or a hand­ful of peo­ple with pow­er.

When that con­fi­dence breaks down, peo­ple stop trust­ing all the struc­tures of gov­ern­ment. That’s when cit­i­zens start to feel that rules are strict on­ly for or­di­nary cit­i­zens and that those who hold ti­tle, sta­tus, con­nec­tions and po­lit­i­cal pro­tec­tion al­ways get off easy. And re­al­ly, who can blame them?

In this coun­try, or­di­nary peo­ple face con­se­quences every day. A work­er makes a se­ri­ous mis­take and could lose a job. A stu­dent breaks a school rule and faces dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

A small busi­ness miss­es a dead­line and has to pay a penal­ty. But when pub­lic of­fi­cials are caught up in se­ri­ous con­tro­ver­sy, sud­den­ly every­thing be­comes com­pli­cat­ed. Then we are told that we have to wait for due process. Sud­den­ly, there is con­text, ex­pla­na­tion, ex­cus­es, le­gal lan­guage and an at­tempt to spin things. And of course, any­body ask­ing for ac­count­abil­i­ty is be­ing un­fair, racist, po­lit­i­cal or ma­li­cious.

From way back, in­tegri­ty has not al­ways been ev­i­dent in pub­lic life in T&T. We have seen too many con­tro­ver­sies come and go with very lit­tle con­se­quences. We had al­le­ga­tions over state con­tracts, pro­cure­ment, pub­lic boards, gov­ern­ment projects and ques­tion­able use of pub­lic funds.

T&T scored on­ly 41 out of 100 on Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al’s 2025 Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions In­dex, rank­ing 81st out of 182 coun­tries. In fact, T&T has been stuck around 41 or 42 for the past five years. This tells us that de­spite all the talk about trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and good gov­er­nance, peo­ple are still not see­ing enough re­al change.

Even Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al’s coun­try page records that 62 per cent of peo­ple sur­veyed felt cor­rup­tion had in­creased in the pre­vi­ous 12 months, while 17 per cent of pub­lic ser­vice users re­port­ed pay­ing a bribe. So, when an­oth­er in­ci­dent be­comes pub­lic, cit­i­zens see it as part of a long pat­tern where those who hold pub­lic of­fice do not show in­tegri­ty and there are no re­al con­se­quences for their ac­tions.

That’s why I com­mend John-Bates for her apol­o­gy. Though, I must ad­mit, I am dis­ap­point­ed in her state­ment, “From the mo­ment I was sworn in as a sen­a­tor, I have sought to dis­charge my du­ties with in­tegri­ty, in good faith and in the pub­lic in­ter­est.”

This is ex­act­ly why an apol­o­gy is not enough for me. In pub­lic life, ac­count­abil­i­ty re­quires more than words. It re­quires the un­der­stand­ing that the of­fice is big­ger than the in­di­vid­ual hold­ing it. That is why I be­lieve the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has to do the cor­rect thing and ac­cept John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion. It would send a clear sign that they recog­nise pub­lic trust has been dam­aged and that con­se­quences must fol­low.

Ac­cept­ing the res­ig­na­tion would send a clear mes­sage that pub­lic of­fice re­quires high­er stan­dards, even when the mat­ter is dif­fi­cult, un­com­fort­able and close to home.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the is­sue is not about whether one sen­a­tor stays or goes. It is about the stan­dard be­ing set for pub­lic life in T&T. Lead­ers can­not call for in­tegri­ty on­ly when it is con­ve­nient or when the con­tro­ver­sy is on the “oth­er side.” They have to show it when the mat­ter is in­side their own house.

At what point do we recog­nise younger gen­er­a­tions are watch­ing all of this?

They are watch­ing how lead­ers be­have when some­thing goes wrong and how par­ties pro­tect their own. If we want the next gen­er­a­tion to do bet­ter, then the ex­am­ple has to start now, be­cause young peo­ple can­not be ex­pect­ed to re­spect in­tegri­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty and pub­lic ser­vice if the lead­ers be­fore them keep show­ing that par­ty and pow­er pro­tect their own.