Say­ing cor­rup­tion is the biggest chal­lenge fac­ing T&T, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Paul Richards ex­pressed sup­port for the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill but he raised sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns re­gard­ing the bill's ef­fi­ca­cy in com­bat­ing cor­rup­tion.

In a com­pelling pre­sen­ta­tion in the Sen­ate on Tues­day, Sen­a­tor Richards em­pha­sized that while the bill aims to ex­pose cor­rup­tion, it could in­ad­ver­tent­ly cre­ate new av­enues for mis­con­duct.

Richards high­light­ed the trou­bling col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween cor­rupt in­di­vid­u­als with­in pub­lic ser­vices, which un­der­mines ef­forts to com­bat crime. He stressed the need for leg­isla­tive cre­ativ­i­ty and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing to erad­i­cate cor­rup­tion.

“We must be cre­ative and use leg­isla­tive mea­sures to cut it out,” he stat­ed.

He praised the bi­par­ti­san sup­port for the bill but urged thor­ough scruti­ny of its pro­vi­sions to en­sure its in­tend­ed ef­fec­tive­ness with­out over­reach. Richards ac­knowl­edged the bill’s re­quire­ment for a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty and warned that it would like­ly face le­gal chal­lenges if passed.

The Sen­a­tor al­so un­der­scored the fail­ure of ex­ist­ing mech­a­nisms in bring­ing cor­rupt pub­lic of­fi­cers to jus­tice, cit­ing non-op­er­a­tional equip­ment and in­ci­dents of de­lib­er­ate sab­o­tage with­in Cus­toms and Ex­cise as ex­am­ples.

“If those mech­a­nisms were work­ing, we wouldn’t be here,” he not­ed.

Richards ex­pressed un­ease with Sec­tion 3 of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Act as amend­ed, which man­dates poly­graph and oth­er lie-de­tec­tion tests for law of­fi­cers. He ques­tioned the am­bi­gu­i­ty of “oth­er lie-de­tect­ing tests,” call­ing for clear­er de­f­i­n­i­tions.

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds clar­i­fied that these could in­clude ID tests, eye scans, and voice stress analy­sis, aim­ing to ad­dress var­i­ous forms of de­cep­tion.

Richards al­so flagged po­ten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties con­cern­ing third-par­ty con­trac­tors han­dling sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in pris­ons. He point­ed out that these con­trac­tors are not sub­ject­ed to the same rig­or­ous test­ing as pub­lic of­fi­cers, pos­ing a sig­nif­i­cant risk.

Richards al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for ro­bust train­ing and main­te­nance pro­to­cols to en­sure the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of lie-de­tec­tion tech­nolo­gies.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne said of­fi­cial cor­rup­tion has flour­ished for many years as he gave a per­son­al ex­am­ple of cor­rup­tion which oc­curred many years ago af­ter he bought his first car as a young man. Browne said if T&T waits for a per­fect piece of leg­is­la­tion, cor­rup­tion will nev­er be dealt with. He urged all par­ties to de­bate the leg­is­la­tion and pass it so that it could be used to tack­le cor­rup­tion.

The Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill, of 2022, aims to tack­le transna­tion­al crime, mon­ey laun­der­ing, and oth­er of­fences by en­cour­ag­ing and pro­tect­ing whistle­blow­ers while reg­u­lat­ing their dis­clo­sures. The bill was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives af­ter Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir sided with the Gov­ern­ment and gave them the votes need­ed for its pas­sage.

The bill is now be­ing de­bat­ed in the Up­per House.