Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said he has no confidence in the Integrity Commission but, at the same time, it is an institution that has to deal with allegations against people in public life.
The Government was not into prosecuting or persecuting anybody and could tackle corruption by providing institutions with legislation to empower them to work more effectively, he said.
Rowley said so during his address to a packed ballroom at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre at an anti-corruption conference, titled Unmask the Corrupt, hosted by the T&T Transparency Institute.
He responded to comments from Transparency International chairman, Jose Carlos Ugaz, a platform speaker, on public concern over the Marlene McDonald and Malcolm Jones issues.
Ugaz indicated there was public perception the Government kept referring corruption allegations to the police but the matters were not investigated.
The Opposition has alleged that Housing Minister Marlene McDonald, when she was community development minister in 2008, used her office to secure a Housing Development Corporation house at the upscale Fidelis Heights for her common-law partner, Michael Carew, and helped him pay for it.
The matter is being investigated by the Integrity Commission but there have been public calls for her to step down. Rowley has said she would not be fired on the basis of allegations.
Jones, shot into the limelight when the State dropped a US$109 million case against him initiated by Anand Ramlogan, attorney general in the last People’s Partnership administration.
The PP government accused Jones of breach of his fiduciary duty and alleged mismanagement in the construction of Petrotrin’s World Gas to Liquid Plant. Rowley defended the decision to quash the case.
At the anti-corruption seminar yesterday the PM basically repeated his earlier position on those two matters and corruption allegations against people in public life in general.
He said he knew a little bit about allegations since many were made against him in Parliament. However, he had to go before a committee where the allegations were referred to for investigation, he said.
In one instance, he was called upon by a former prime minister to account for a missing $10 million, he said. “In cases like that one can rely only on institutions,” he added.
Rowley said when he formed his Cabinet, he told members if anyone felt he was coming to government to enrich himself that was the time to leave. “No one left,” he added.
He said T&T had been steadily barreling towards the international prize of being ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world.
In 2001, T&T ranked 32 on the anti-corruption index. In 2004, 53 and in 2011, 91. Between 2011 and 2015, T&T moved back to 79, but with the same score, he said.
“It appears that we were at one time reasonably decent but in a 15-year period we have gone to being among the worst in the world,” he said.
The Government looked at countries that were in T&T’s position and went on to improve its rankings, like Greece, Senegal and the UK, and found it was because it tackled corruption in public life, he said.