Asha Javeed and Jensen La Vende

In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk

As his term comes to an end this Thurs­day, chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion (IC) Prof Ra­jen­dra Ram­lo­gan says the de­ci­sion to in­ves­ti­gate Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley three times did not come from him.

That ra­tio­nale for in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Ram­lo­gan said, lies with the in­ves­ti­ga­tors em­ployed by the IC.

“And I must fur­ther add that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are not con­duct­ed by the Com­mis­sion. This is the purview of the In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit which is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions that are then sub­mit­ted to the Com­mis­sion with rec­om­men­da­tions.

‘The Com­mis­sion re­views all sub­mis­sions in the con­text of be­ing the fi­nal au­thor­i­ty for de­ter­min­ing the end re­sult of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Thus, the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is sole­ly due to the dili­gence and work eth­ic of our in­ves­ti­ga­tors,” he told the Sun­day Guardian last week.

The IC did three sep­a­rate in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Dr Row­ley’s In­ez Gate prop­er­ty in To­ba­go and in all three in­ves­ti­ga­tions, he was cleared.

Why was it nec­es­sary to do three sep­a­rate in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Dr Row­ley?

The onus again lies with the of­fi­cers of the IC.

Ram­lo­gan not­ed that the IC did not use ex­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tors to con­duct its three in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Dr Row­ley but utilised in-house in­ves­ti­ga­tors, with its bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion, to do the work.

“Dur­ing my tenure, we have not spent a cent on any in­ves­ti­ga­tions. We have done all us­ing 100 per cent in­ter­nal re­sources. All costs are part of our in­ter­nal and ap­proved bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion,” he said.

“Be­tween 2018 to 2020, 18 in­ves­ti­ga­tions were closed to be con­trast­ed with 104 for the pe­ri­od 2021-2023. This is in the con­text of a slight in­crease in the in­ter­nal bud­get for in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” he said.

For the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2018 to De­cem­ber 2020, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions unit had a bud­get of $2,649,793.

For the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2021 to De­cem­ber 2023, its bud­get was in­creased to $3,124,517.

Last week, Ram­lo­gan drew the ire of Dr Row­ley af­ter the IC is­sued a press state­ment rais­ing con­cerns about the re­duced bud­get for the in­sti­tu­tion and in­di­cat­ing it had ac­cept­ed free le­gal work to ini­ti­ate le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

Dr Row­ley is­sued a state­ment which said, “I per­mit my­self to posit that maybe the is­sue is far too many ill-ad­vised and po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions have been em­barked up­on by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and more cir­cum­spect in­ves­ti­ga­tions need to be con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with the let­ter and spir­it of the Act.”

Ram­lo­gan’s term in of­fice, as chair of the 17th Com­mis­sion, comes to an end on De­cem­ber 11. He was ap­point­ed by for­mer pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weekes and as­sumed his two-year term in Jan­u­ary 2021.

His tenure has been con­tro­ver­sial as he has drawn the ire of both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Op­po­si­tion. Last Au­gust, Dr Row­ley said the IC lacked in­tegri­ty and its state­ment paved the way for al­le­ga­tions to be made about his char­ac­ter. Mean­while, the UNC called on all mem­bers to re­sign over the IC’s clear­ance to Dr Row­ley.

The ball is now in Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s court on whether Ram­lo­gan will get an­oth­er term.

Row­ley blames the UNC

Dr Row­ley holds a dif­fer­ent view on in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to him­self which af­fects his rep­u­ta­tion and the af­fects pub­lic opin­ion of him.

He told the Sun­day Guardian last week that, for the sec­ond time in his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, he was gear­ing up to sue the IC but was cleared again be­fore he could take ac­tion.

“The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion dis­con­tin­ued this new set of in­ves­ti­ga­tions even be­fore I filed the law­suit, to which I was en­ti­tled and quite pre­pared to do in re­sponse to the ridicu­lous be­hav­iour of a com­mis­sion which clear­ly was be­ing used to ad­vance the po­lit­i­cal agen­da of op­po­si­tion politi­cians who see the IC as one of their tools for per­son­al at­tacks based on their wish­es,” he said.

In his view, the three in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der­tak­en by the IC all stemmed from state­ments made on UNC plat­forms.

“I have been the sub­ject of a con­stant stream of vil­i­fi­ca­tion and in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the UNC and the in­tegri­ty com­mis­sion,” he said.

“I ex­pect noth­ing less from the UNC, but I am en­ti­tled to ex­pect in­tegri­ty from peo­ple who agree to serve on the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. Those with­out in­tegri­ty, who get on the com­mis­sion, are not part of any so­lu­tion to fight­ing cor­rup­tion, they are part of the cor­rup­tion that should be fought,” he told the Sun­day Guardian in a What­sApp ex­change yes­ter­day.

On the no­tion that the IC favours him by clear­ing him, he posit­ed that had they not done the work of the UNC, to be­gin with, there would be no need for ex­on­er­a­tion.

“Be­ing cleared by find­ing no ev­i­dence to sup­port al­le­ga­tions is not PNM, it is called EX­ON­ER­A­TION. Fish­ing for in­for­ma­tion to sup­port po­lit­i­cal al­le­ga­tions, find­ing no ev­i­dence then be­ing mo­ti­vat­ed to re-open THE SAME IN­VES­TI­GA­TION is mal­ice. Clos­ing the re­opened in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the face of a le­gal threat is PROOF of the lack of au­thor­i­ty in at­tempt­ing to smear me in a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion to please oth­ers,” he said.

“It is not my du­ty to pro­tect the un­law­ful con­duct of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. That is a re­quire­ment for the com­mis­sion it­self. As far as I am con­cerned, it is the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion that has done the most to dam­age the in­sti­tu­tion ren­der­ing it al­most use­less in the as­sign­ment giv­en to it by Par­lia­ment,” he said.

Last De­cem­ber, Row­ley ac­cused the com­mis­sion of em­bark­ing on a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion aimed at smear­ing his name af­ter it said it was open­ing an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his re­la­tion­ship with Al­lan Warn­er and his com­pa­ny and the state con­tracts it re­ceived.

Asked how he could ac­cuse the com­mis­sion of plot­ting against him when it con­duct­ed oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to oth­er peo­ple, Row­ley re­spond­ed, “I can speak to the role of UNC in­flu­ence in the at­tempt­ed per­se­cu­tion and/or pros­e­cu­tion of me be­cause ALL the al­le­ga­tions pur­sued by the in­tegri­ty com­mis­sion came in­to the pub­lic do­main and the in­tegri­ty from UNC plat­forms. I can’t speak for any­body else, but I will most cer­tain­ly speak about my­self in any mat­ter in­volv­ing my rep­u­ta­tion.”

Ram­lo­gan: The com­mis­sion’s pri­ma­ry du­ty is to the peo­ple of T&T

For his part, Ram­lo­gan re­spond­ed that the com­mis­sion is a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly es­tab­lished body whose pri­ma­ry du­ty is to the peo­ple of T&T.

“Sec­tion 33 of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act re­quires the com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints by any mem­ber of the pub­lic re­gard­less of af­fil­i­a­tion. “The com­mis­sion—(b) shall up­on the com­plaint of any mem­ber of the pub­lic, con­sid­er and en­quire in­to any al­leged breach­es of the act or any al­le­ga­tions of cor­rupt or dis­hon­est con­duct”. It must be not­ed that the word is “shall”. It would be con­trary to the law for the com­mis­sion to fail to in­ves­ti­gate a com­plaint based on the af­fil­i­a­tions of a mem­ber of the pub­lic.

“The du­ty of the com­mis­sion is to be in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial and en­gage in its in­ves­ti­ga­tions and de­lib­er­a­tions with­out fear or favour. Fur­ther, I do not be­lieve that the of­fice of the chair­man of the IC should ever en­gage in de­bat­ing the views of per­sons in pub­lic life as it per­tains to its op­er­a­tions,” he said.

Un­der Ram­lo­gan’s watch

The is­sues raised by Ram­lo­gan un­der his watch:

Fund­ing: Ram­lo­gan said the 17th IC has re­ceived the low­est fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tions since 2010. The IC was al­lo­cat­ed $25, 650,452 for 2021-2023.

Ad­min­is­tra­tion con­cerns: De­spite be­ing an in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty, ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sions were be­ing de­ferred to pub­lic of­fi­cials such as the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer. In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian in Au­gust 2023, Ram­lo­gan said the IC wrote to the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al to in­ter­pret some of its con­cerns.

Staff: The IC wrote to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to file 25 dis­ci­pli­nary charges against one of­fi­cer. The or­gan­i­sa­tion struc­ture was filled with ad­min­is­tra­tive po­si­tions and in­suf­fi­cient hu­man re­sources to ex­e­cute the core du­ties of the com­mis­sion. Ad­min­is­tra­tion staff ac­counts for 63 per cent of the com­mis­sion, com­pli­ance about 20 per cent and in­ves­ti­ga­tion about 17 per cent.

Com­pli­ance: There has been an in­crease in de­c­la­ra­tion fil­ings be­fore the May 31 dead­line. By May 31, 2023, 843 de­c­la­ra­tions were filed dur­ing the pe­ri­od of Jan­u­ary 31, 2022, to May 31, 2023. For the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od be­fore–Jan­u­ary 31, 2020, to May 2021–on­ly 268 de­c­la­ra­tions were filed.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions: Out of the 16 cas­es re­ceived at the start of his tenure, one mat­ter has been re­ferred to the DPP. Post 2021, the com­mis­sion has re­ceived 22 com­plaints and has re­solved 18, with one mat­ter be­ing re­ferred to the DPP. Ram­lo­gan had said that an au­dit of the In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, which was con­duct­ed at the end of 2021, re­vealed the pres­ence of around 95 in­ves­ti­ga­tions that ap­peared to be in­com­plete–with­out min­utes in­di­cat­ing clo­sure or any ev­i­dence in the files that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions were com­plet­ed. He said the IC has sub­mit­ted over 30 mat­ters to the Of­fice of the DPP for the pros­e­cu­tion of peo­ple who have failed to com­ply with ex parte or­ders to file their de­c­la­ra­tions.

Changes re­quest­ed: Ram­lo­gan had de­scribed the IC as tooth­less. He not­ed that apart from leg­isla­tive changes there are ad­min­is­tra­tive chal­lenges that ought to be ad­dressed to make the Com­mis­sion more im­pact­ful.

“A com­mis­sion that is starved for funds, can on­ly do so much. When com­plaints are made against per­sons in pub­lic life and per­sons ex­er­cis­ing pub­lic func­tions and the Com­mis­sion is con­front­ed by a pletho­ra of se­nior coun­sels but is with­out a bud­get to seek sim­i­lar ex­per­tise, it be­comes an en­dur­ing bat­tle,” he had said in Au­gust 2023.