Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The cre­ation of a na­tion­al an­ti-cor­rup­tion com­mis­sion has been sug­gest­ed as a tool in strength­en­ing the ca­pac­i­ties of dif­fer­ent agen­cies in the fight against cor­rup­tion.

The is­sues were raised by the di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), David West, dur­ing a pan­el dis­cus­sion at the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion’s An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Day sem­i­nar at the Hilton Con­fer­ence Cen­tre on Tues­day.

Re­fer­ring to his own or­gan­i­sa­tion as a civil­ian over­sight com­mit­tee for al­le­ga­tions of po­lice mis­con­duct and cor­rup­tion, West said by na­ture of their role, they were not al­lowed to share in­for­ma­tion across dif­fer­ent agen­cies.

He not­ed that an over­ar­ch­ing body like an an­ti-cor­rup­tion com­mis­sion would en­hance the re­spon­sive­ness of all agen­cies by al­low­ing seam­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion and more ef­fi­cient mo­bil­i­sa­tion of ef­forts to tack­le in­sti­tu­tion­al cor­rup­tion.

Re­fer­ring to di­rec­tor of the Min­istry of Fi­nance’s Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Unit (FIU) Nigel Stod­dard, and Snr Supt Kris­nalal Nanan of the po­lice An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau (ACIB), who al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the dis­cus­sion, West said he was fa­mil­iar with both men, not­ing that they were trust­wor­thy but stressed that the trans­fer­ance of in­for­ma­tion es­pe­cial­ly re­lat­ing to sen­si­tive mat­ters of in­ves­ti­ga­tions would not be pos­si­ble.

“We all know each oth­er very well, we all trust each oth­er’s in­tegri­ty, et cetera, but we can­not share in­for­ma­tion.

“Our own statutes say it’s con­fi­den­tial, but we work in si­los, al­though we have a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing... many times he can­not share what he wants to share with me, and that’s the prob­lem, the shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion with­in these bod­ies is a prob­lem.

“That is why we say we need a Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion Against Cor­rup­tion where every­thing can come to one body and be del­e­gat­ed and in­ves­ti­gat­ed prop­er­ly.”

The need for more di­rect col­lab­o­ra­tion was al­so raised by Snr Supt Nanan, who not­ed that de­lays in in­ves­ti­ga­tions as one of the chal­lenges af­fect­ing the work of units like the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB).

The PSB is a unit of the TTPS re­spon­si­ble for in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct among po­lice of­fi­cers.

Re­fer­ring to ear­li­er re­marks made by West, who ac­knowl­edged a point of over­lap be­tween his or­gan­i­sa­tion and the PSB, Nanan said the PCA did not have pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pow­ers, and there­fore a sep­a­rate po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion would some­times have to be con­duct­ed, which would take longer and af­fect as­pects of the case.

“In the grand scheme of things, it cre­ates de­lays and those de­lays of­ten lend to fail­ures with wit­ness­es who are crit­i­cal in us es­tab­lish­ing pri­ma fa­cie cas­es to ei­ther take it to a court of com­pe­tent ju­ris­dic­tion or im­ple­ment in­ter­nal dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures, be­cause in­sti­tu­tions some­what op­er­ate in si­los based on their cur­rent struc­ture.

“The po­lice, to en­sure this dossier is ev­i­dence-wor­thy to sub­mit to a tri­bunal, has to re­do that in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and that lends to de­lays and the de­lays are be­cause of oth­er in­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges. In terms of the pre­sen­ta­tion of ev­i­dence is not an overnight ‘quick fix.’

“This is where re­form for in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion is dire.”

Dur­ing his fea­ture ad­dress, chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion Haydn Git­tens al­so ac­knowl­edged that pre­vent­ing cor­rup­tion in in­sti­tu­tions did not nec­es­sar­i­ly in­clude adding stiffer penal­ties and bu­reau­cra­cy, but could be achieved through a change in the cul­ture of or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“Too of­ten trans­paren­cy is viewed through the nar­row lens of rules, ‘What to file, what to de­clare, what to avoid, how to re­spond,’ rules are im­por­tant, but rules alone are in­suf­fi­cient if we are to cre­ate a na­tion of which we are to be proud.

“A cul­ture of com­pli­ance re­duces in­ci­dents of un­law­ful be­hav­iour and sup­ports the main­te­nance of so­ci­etal or­der, but a cul­ture based on in­di­vid­ual and so­cial in­tegri­ty en­sures a pos­i­tive align­ment be­tween val­ues and be­hav­iours and by ex­ten­sion be­tween na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and the peo­ple they serve.”

“Strength­en­ing in­sti­tu­tions should not sim­ply be about adding poli­cies or in­creas­ing penal­ties, but en­abling our pub­lic ser­vice to op­er­ate with greater clar­i­ty, ef­fi­cien­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

The theme of this year’s sym­po­sium was ‘Unit­ing the youth against cor­rup­tion: Shap­ing to­mor­row’s in­tegri­ty.’

Git­tens said that young peo­ple have demon­strat­ed their will­ing­ness to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo and ques­tion out­dat­ed norms, not­ing that such views would be es­sen­tial in de­mand­ing a high­er stan­dard of ac­count­abil­i­ty from in­sti­tu­tions.

“They de­mand speed, fair­ness, clar­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. They ex­pect sys­tems that work when they do not, the pub­lic is more will­ing than ever to speak up.”