Civil society must play a greater role to police those in authority, says chairman of the T&T Transparency Institute Deryck Murray. He was speaking at a press conference at Fernandes Industrial Estate, Laventille, yesterday to announce the fifth annual transparency anti-corruption conference scheduled for next Monday.
“Governance and integrity are fairly standard things that we talk about but at the end of the day it’s people and we need to galvanise.”
The conference, themed “Unmask the Corrupt,” is expected to be held at the Hilton Hotel, Port-of-Spain, and has listed several foreign speakers, including former journalist Frank Vogl, co-founder and former vice-chairman and adviser to the managing director of the advisory council of Transparency International. Prime Minister Keith Rowley is also expected to speak at the conference.
Regarding the collapse of the case against former Petrotrin executive chairman Malcolm Jones, Murray said the institute could not make any immediate pronouncements but said the matter would be looked at as there were processes to follow.
“But justice is not something that can change every five years with a change of government. Every case has to be investigated on its own merit.
“One of the things we all know and all notice is that it appears that nobody faces the consequences for actions taken at various times and that is not acceptable,” Murray added.
On Monday, the State withdrew the US$109 million lawsuit against Jones for a breach of fiduciary duty arising out of the failed billion-dollar Gas to Liquid Plant (GTL) project.
On whistle-blower legislation, Murray said while that may be in place there must also be a strong body of protective services to ensure such protection. He said given the recent corruption perception index of this country, T&T had much more work to do.
“Out of a possible score of 100, I am not convinced that 39 is such a good mark and we need to do things to improve.
“We need to look at our neighbours, like Jamaica, who improved by three points this year and we need to see that they have imposed legislation and they have been involved in the prosecution of high levels officials and we need to do that,” Murray urged.
On whether there were any matters engaging the attention of the Transparency Institute, Murray, who said he preferred not to be specific, added: “At the moment there is a lot going on.”
Vogl, who also spoke, said reporters played a key role in unmasking corruption and any effort made by Government or any other authoritative bodies to stifle such a process must be strongly condemned.
“Journalists want to comfort the afflicted by afflicting the comfortable. Journalists have a vital mission and if they don’t stick with it and if they allow themselves to be intimidated the world will be a worse place.
“Governments that are curbing civil society and anti-corruption are also curbing press freedom. It is an enormous problem for us today,” Vogl said.