The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion record­ed its high­est-ever com­pli­ance rate last year, with 78 per cent of peo­ple in pub­lic life sub­mit­ting their fi­nan­cial de­c­la­ra­tions—a sharp rise from 61 per cent the year be­fore.

The fig­ure is part of the Com­mis­sion’s 37th An­nu­al Re­port, which at­trib­uted the in­crease to sus­tained out­reach and ed­u­ca­tion ef­forts tar­get­ing pub­lic of­fi­cers, board mem­bers, and elect­ed of­fi­cials.

“While the over­all com­pli­ance rate is en­cour­ag­ing,” the Com­mis­sion said, “we con­tin­ue to see sig­nif­i­cant room for im­prove­ment in key cat­e­gories.”

Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives achieved a com­pli­ance rate of 76.19 per cent. Boards of State En­ter­pris­es had the high­est at 78.21 per cent, fol­lowed close­ly by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries and Chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cers. The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly record­ed the low­est cat­e­go­ry-wide rate, at 60 per cent.

De­spite the his­toric high, 328 in­di­vid­u­als failed to file de­c­la­ra­tions for the years 2021 to 2023. The com­mis­sion said it in­tends to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion against them un­der Sec­tion 11(7) of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, which al­lows the High Court to is­sue an or­der com­pelling a per­son to com­ply.

“If the in­di­vid­ual fails to com­ply with the Or­der of the Court, they are then li­able to a fine and im­pris­on­ment as stip­u­lat­ed by the Act,” the re­port stat­ed. The com­mis­sion al­so con­firmed it will pro­ceed ex parte—with­out no­ti­fy­ing the non-com­pli­ant par­ties—if nec­es­sary.

This marks a shift in tone for the in­sti­tu­tion, which has his­tor­i­cal­ly re­lied on vol­un­tary com­pli­ance and moral sua­sion.

“Giv­en the sus­tained lack of re­sponse from some per­sons in pub­lic life, the com­mis­sion has no al­ter­na­tive but to ini­ti­ate en­force­ment through the courts,” the re­port said.

On­ly 33 per cent of de­c­la­ra­tions re­ceived in 2023 were ex­am­ined—down from 41 per cent in 2022. Just 9 per cent were ful­ly processed and cer­ti­fied. The com­mis­sion blamed staffing and bud­get con­straints for the back­log, not­ing that its Com­pli­ance Unit is op­er­at­ing at 47 per cent of the staff it needs.

In the re­port, the com­mis­sion al­so raised alarm over pub­lic of­fi­cials who file de­c­la­ra­tions but pro­vide in­com­plete or un­ver­i­fi­able in­for­ma­tion.

“Com­pli­ance is not sim­ply fil­ing a form; it must be ac­cu­rate, time­ly and ca­pa­ble of ver­i­fi­ca­tion,” the re­port said.

It added that the com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to car­ry a bur­den of un­re­solved lega­cy mat­ters, with 23 “cold cas­es”—of­ten po­lit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive or pro­ce­du­ral­ly com­plex—still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Ten cold cas­es were closed in 2024, bring­ing the to­tal closed since 2021 to 72. The Com­mis­sion said these cas­es are “ex­treme­ly com­plex and re­source-in­ten­sive,” par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en its on­go­ing staffing con­straints.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, 71 per cent of the com­mis­sion’s staff are em­ployed on short-term three-month con­tracts, a sit­u­a­tion it de­scribed as “un­sus­tain­able.”

It warned that the lack of sta­bil­i­ty is af­fect­ing long-term projects, in­clud­ing the planned dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of its fil­ing and re­view sys­tem. Phase 1 of that project is ex­pect­ed to be­gin in Feb­ru­ary 2025.

The com­mis­sion al­so plans to meet di­rect­ly with boards of pub­lic bod­ies that record­ed less than 50 per cent com­pli­ance, with the aim of “iden­ti­fy­ing and ad­dress­ing bar­ri­ers to fil­ing” in the new re­port­ing year.

Haydn Git­tens is the chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

The com­mis­sion al­so re­vealed that pro­posed leg­isla­tive changes aimed at strength­en­ing its en­force­ment pow­ers were not sup­port­ed by Cab­i­net.

The amend­ments would have giv­en the com­mis­sion broad­er au­thor­i­ty to im­pose ad­min­is­tra­tive fines, in­tro­duce whistle­blow­er pro­tec­tions, and cre­ate a for­mal “right of re­ply” mech­a­nism to im­prove pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness dur­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“These amend­ments were craft­ed to re­flect both in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice and the com­mis­sion’s re­al-world ex­pe­ri­ence in ex­e­cut­ing its man­date,” the re­port said. “The ab­sence of such pro­vi­sions in the ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion lim­its the com­mis­sion’s ef­fec­tive­ness and de­lays the res­o­lu­tion of mat­ters of pub­lic con­cern.”

Among the com­mis­sion’s key rec­om­men­da­tions was a pro­pos­al to al­low it to levy fines di­rect­ly, rather than re­ly sole­ly on lengthy court pro­ceed­ings. The com­mis­sion ar­gued this change would de­ter non-com­pli­ance and al­low swifter ac­tion against breach­es.

The whistle­blow­er pro­vi­sion, mean­while, was in­tend­ed to shield in­di­vid­u­als who re­port cor­rup­tion or mis­con­duct from re­tal­i­a­tion. The com­mis­sion not­ed that many po­ten­tial in­for­mants are re­luc­tant to come for­ward un­der the cur­rent le­gal frame­work.

“Po­ten­tial whistle­blow­ers re­main vul­ner­a­ble to em­ploy­ment or po­lit­i­cal reper­cus­sions,” the com­mis­sion wrote, adding that with­out le­gal safe­guards, “cor­rupt prac­tices are less like­ly to be brought to light”.

The right-of-re­ply mech­a­nism was aimed at en­sur­ing pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness by al­low­ing per­sons un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion to for­mal­ly re­spond to the com­mis­sion’s find­ings be­fore any pub­lic dis­clo­sure.

“This would en­hance trans­paren­cy and bol­ster pub­lic con­fi­dence in our in­ves­tiga­tive process,” the re­port stat­ed.

“These are not rad­i­cal pro­pos­als,” the com­mis­sion ar­gued. “They are tools that any mod­ern over­sight body re­quires if it is to meet pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions for ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

De­spite the lack of Cab­i­net sup­port, the com­mis­sion said it re­mains com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing leg­isla­tive re­form and has called for a re­newed na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion about in­tegri­ty, trust, and pub­lic ser­vice.