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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Questions over spending by Securities Commission

by

20140506

The T&T Se­cu­ri­ties Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC), which has been in ex­is­tence since 1996, has nev­er brought a le­gal ac­tion over in­sid­er-trad­ing.Ques­tions were al­so raised as to the use of monies al­lo­cat­ed to the TTSEC, es­pe­cial­ly when it came to leas­ing ve­hi­cles.TTSEC's CEO Wain­wright Iton and oth­er mem­bers of man­age­ment ap­peared be­fore the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day to an­swer ques­tions.

The is­sue of in­sid­er-trad­ing was raised by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dhanayshar Ma­habir, who asked how many pros­e­cu­tions there had been for in­sid­er-trad­ing over the last 18 years.Iton, in re­sponse, said: "The short an­swer is ze­ro. There have been, I think, maybe three or four in­ves­ti­ga­tions but pros­e­cu­tions in re­spect of in­sid­er-trad­ing...it is not an easy ex­er­cise."That prompt­ed the com­mit­tee's chair­man, Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert, to say: "So the an­swer is ze­ro and ze­ro."

On TTSEC's op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said the fig­ure was $24.8 mil­lion in 2008 and dropped in 2009 to $20.7 mil­lion and again dropped in 2010 to $20.6 mil­lion."From 2010 on­wards it moved and it jumped from $20.6 mil­lion to $31.4 mil­lion in 2013.

"So in the space of three years your op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es jumped by $10 mil­lion for a very small in­sti­tu­tion and I thought that in­crease in the op­er­at­ing ex­pen­di­ture had to do with the in­crease in in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the in­crease in the work you all are do­ing," Ram­lo­gan said.

Iton said the TTSEC did not have the au­thor­i­ty to bring pros­e­cu­tions on its own as it had to go through the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.The amount spent on the TTSEC's eight ve­hi­cles was al­so ques­tioned.

Ma­habir said records showed in 2009 $547,000 was spent on ve­hi­cle main­te­nance, $427,000 in 2010, $512,000 in 2011 and in 2012, $790,000 was spent.Iton said that fig­ure in­clud­ed the rental cost of the ve­hi­cles."So you are re­al­ly leas­ing ve­hi­cles and not ac­quir­ing them. On av­er­age, then, you are spend­ing $100,000 a year to lease a ve­hi­cle. Is this good eco­nom­ics?" TTSEC's man­age­ment was al­so warned that the en­tire board must be present at the next com­mit­tee meet­ing to be ques­tioned.


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