The re­cent com­ment by Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed in the abort­ed CEPEP case last week, in­di­cat­ing that ad­di­tion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion is war­rant­ed, and those of the coun­sel for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al con­cern­ing the ex­tra­di­tion of Jack Warn­er, again raise the is­sue of mis­be­hav­iour by pub­lic of­fi­cials in of­fice.

Mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice re­quires a high stan­dard of proof and must be dis­tin­guished from mere in­com­pe­tence or mis­takes. Mere al­le­ga­tions in the pub­lic do­main have no last­ing ef­fect, though tri­al in the court of pub­lic opin­ion is the norm.

In his de­ci­sion on the SporTT case, which was de­cid­ed a few weeks ago, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim af­firmed that di­rec­tors of state en­ter­pris­es are not “rub­ber stamps”. Fur­ther, notwith­stand­ing that the board was op­er­at­ing on the in­struc­tions of min­istry of­fi­cials, it had a du­ty to act in the best in­terest of the com­pa­ny. He not­ed that the re­al los­er in SporTT was not the com­pa­ny but the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who were to ben­e­fit from the pro­gramme.

The point is that state en­ter­pris­es are formed for pub­lic pur­pos­es, not for po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age or to guar­an­tee the re-elec­tion of politi­cians or par­ties. De­spite the pub­lic pos­tur­ing, this ap­plies to all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, though the main po­lit­i­cal par­ties act as though their hands are clean. Too of­ten, on as­sum­ing of­fice, in­cum­bents pay lip ser­vice to the need for trans­paren­cy and good gov­er­nance while show­cas­ing the fail­ures of the pre­de­ces­sor ad­min­is­tra­tion. An ex­am­i­na­tion of our po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry is re­plete with ex­am­ples of ac­cu­sa­tions and al­le­ga­tions of in­ter­fer­ence in the op­er­a­tions of state en­ter­pris­es and the award of con­tracts.

If we are se­ri­ous­ly in­ter­est­ed in im­prov­ing the gov­er­nance struc­tures in our state en­ter­pris­es to min­imise cor­rup­tion, mis­man­age­ment or waste, we must strength­en the ex­ist­ing leg­isla­tive ar­chi­tec­ture. The Cab­i­net and min­is­ters are re­spon­si­ble for di­rec­tions and in­struc­tions giv­en to state en­ter­pris­es and oth­er sim­i­lar bod­ies. It makes no sense to hold mere func­tionar­ies ac­count­able with­out ad­dress­ing the ar­chi­tects and ben­e­fi­cia­ries of these mis­be­hav­iours.The ex­ist­ing ar­chi­tec­ture—name­ly, the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, the Pro­cure­ment Act, the Com­pa­nies Act, and the State En­ter­pris­es Per­for­mance Man­u­al—is in­ad­e­quate in hold­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials ac­count­able. There have been no suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tions to date.

An elect­ed of­fi­cial is re­port­ed in Hansard as com­ment­ing on Oc­to­ber 19, 2009: “… there are very few min­is­ters who find them­selves in a sit­u­a­tion to in­flu­ence gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture … It is the func­tionar­ies in the sys­tem that do it. In Africa, Asia and South Amer­i­ca, it is the func­tionar­ies in ca­hoots with their part­ners in gov­ern­ment. It is nev­er the gov­ern­ment. No min­is­ter can sign a cheque, but if you have the right con­nec­tions in the sys­tem where the op­er­a­tions take place, that is where it hap­pens.”For the record, any no­table suc­cess in cor­rup­tion cas­es as­so­ci­at­ed with Trinidad and To­ba­go has oc­curred in for­eign ju­ris­dic­tions.

These in­clude the law­suit in­volv­ing Tesoro in the Unit­ed States, where it paid USD 2.8 mil­lion to set­tle wire and mail fraud, rack­e­teer­ing, and bribery. Sim­i­lar­ly, Sam P Wal­lace Com­pa­ny Inc plead­ed guilty to cor­rupt pay­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go and paid a fine. More re­cent­ly, in 2023, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment was award­ed $900 mil­lion in dam­ages, ac­cord­ing to the fi­nal judg­ment in the Pi­ar­co Air­port civ­il as­set for­fei­ture case in Mi­a­mi against a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and oth­ers.

Un­til we en­force laws that hold elect­ed of­fi­cials re­spon­si­ble for their ac­tions, cor­rup­tion will re­main en­trenched, and the peo­ple will keep pay­ing the price.