One pos­si­ble pos­i­tive out­come of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fund­ing of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters and its ad­join­ing com­mer­cial com­plex is that it could open the door to mean­ing­ful in­quiries in­to decades of al­le­ga­tions that politi­cians, pub­lic of­fi­cials and or­gan­i­sa­tions have amassed ex­tra­or­di­nary wealth over rel­a­tive­ly short pe­ri­ods.

How­ev­er, such in­ves­ti­ga­tions should not be con­fined to one po­lit­i­cal par­ty. They should ex­tend to any­one whose ac­cu­mu­la­tion of as­sets ap­pears dis­pro­por­tion­ate to known sources of in­come. For too long, al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion have cir­cu­lat­ed in the pub­lic do­main with­out be­ing thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed or con­clu­sive­ly re­solved.

The cur­rent probe is be­ing con­duct­ed un­der the Un­ex­plained Wealth Act, leg­is­la­tion in­tro­duced by the PNM while in gov­ern­ment. The law re­quires in­di­vid­u­als, busi­ness­es and or­gan­i­sa­tions to ac­count for the sources of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed as­sets and is in­tend­ed to iden­ti­fy wealth ac­quired through un­law­ful or cor­rupt means.

For decades, the PNM and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) have rou­tine­ly ac­cused each oth­er of cor­rup­tion. Suc­ces­sive elec­tion cam­paigns have been marked by al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing, ques­tion­able con­tracts, il­lic­it en­rich­ment and im­prop­er po­lit­i­cal fi­nanc­ing. Yet, rel­a­tive­ly few cas­es have re­sult­ed in suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tions or de­fin­i­tive court rul­ings.

In­stead, cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions have too of­ten be­come po­lit­i­cal weapons, de­ployed dur­ing elec­tion sea­sons and then aban­doned when pub­lic at­ten­tion shifts else­where. As the Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly not­ed, sev­er­al high-pro­file cas­es have been dis­con­tin­ued, in­suf­fi­cient­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed or left un­re­solved for years. The con­se­quence has been grow­ing pub­lic cyn­i­cism and a per­cep­tion that cor­rup­tion is dis­cussed far more of­ten than it is con­front­ed.

If the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Bal­isi­er House is to car­ry cred­i­bil­i­ty, it must not stop there. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and his of­fi­cers should be pre­pared to pur­sue al­le­ga­tions wher­ev­er they lead, in­clud­ing claims in­volv­ing the UNC, its fi­nanciers and mem­bers of the nou­veau riche who have ac­cu­mu­lat­ed sub­stan­tial for­tunes with­out any ob­vi­ous ex­pla­na­tion of their ori­gins.

At the same time, there must be safe­guards against the mis­use of the law. The pur­suit of un­ex­plained wealth must be ev­i­dence-dri­ven, not po­lit­i­cal­ly dri­ven. In­ves­ti­ga­tions lack­ing cred­i­ble ev­i­dence or con­duct­ed in a man­ner that sug­gests par­ti­san in­tent would un­der­mine con­fi­dence in both the po­lice and the jus­tice sys­tem.

The ac­tions of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and his se­nior of­fi­cers will there­fore be sub­ject to close pub­lic scruti­ny. If cas­es pro­ceed to court, they must be sup­port­ed by sol­id ev­i­dence ca­pa­ble of with­stand­ing ju­di­cial ex­am­i­na­tion. Any­thing less will re­in­force claims of po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion rather than strength­en the fight against cor­rup­tion.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the re­al test of the Gov­ern­ment's and Op­po­si­tion's com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy lies else­where. Both par­ties should sup­port com­pre­hen­sive cam­paign fi­nance leg­is­la­tion so cit­i­zens can know who funds po­lit­i­cal par­ties and what in­ter­ests may stand be­hind those seek­ing pub­lic of­fice.

The coun­try is hold­ing its breath in the hope that this in­ves­ti­ga­tion marks the be­gin­ning of a gen­uine and im­par­tial ef­fort to con­front cor­rup­tion. If that is to hap­pen, the stan­dard must be sim­ple and un­wa­ver­ing: let the ev­i­dence in­dict the guilty, re­gard­less of who they are or which par­ty they sup­port.