Independent Senator asks: 'Are we corrupt?'

“Is TT a corrupt society?”

Independent Senator Hazel Thompson-Ahye posed this question on Thursday, in her feature address during the launch of the Corruption Perception Index hosted by the TT Transparency Institute.

Thompson-Ahye said while the society is corrupt, not all the people are.

“I dare say there are more honest people in this country than there are dishonest people,” Ahye said.

In asking the question, she highlighted several scandals over TT’s history – going as far back as the 1965 gas station racket, to recent scandals including Life Sport, Clico, the Las Alturas building project and others.

She also recalled days when there was a trade in forged birth certificates.

“The government had shut down a certain plant and to get compensation people had to produce a birth certificate without a name, but which carried 'boy child' or 'girl child' and had a particular date of birth which suited them.

“One Registrar-General had even encountered a woman with a decidedly Guyanese accent who tried to convince her she was a born Trini who had lost her birth certificate. Once I myself encountered a young man who worked in the vault, boasting he could make any certificate.”

Thompson-Ahye quoted the late PNM minister Desmond Cartey, who in 1986 infamously blurted out on a campaign platform, “All ah we tief.”

“He cannot rest in peace,” Thompson-Ahye said. “I am sure he did not mean to be taken so literally, but after his death that ill-fated statement is for what he is remembered

“But he is not the only one with that legacy. We have had scandal after scandal over the years.”

She also echoed the findings of the Economic Development Report of 2019, in which principal economist at the Latin American Development Bank Dr Gustavo Fajardo said TT had a “higer than average bribe rate” in the region.

She recalled moments when she had to stand up against corruption, saying she had to stand alone on a particular board when she maintained that a particular prime minister was not entitled to a wish because it was unlawful.

“I pointed to the legal provision that supported my view. I was told he was the Prime Minister.

“The Attorney General phoned my house to ask me to reconsider. I refused saying, ‘Today is Good Friday. You can crucify me.’"

She said confronting corruption required courage, and listed several ways to deal with it, including the promotion of clean leadership in key institutions, accountability though parliamentary processes, establishing the freedom of the media, improving integrity and transparency in revenue collection, and engaging civil society and improving its participation in governance.

“Yes, we are corrupt, but not all of us are, so there is hope,” she said. “The phrase 'honest politician' is not an oxymoron. Elimination of corruption is not an insurmountable mountain we cannot climb.”

The Corruption Perception Index was launched on Thursday, and TT got a score of 40 out of 100 for the second time in a row. TT ranked 88th, behind Guyana, which improved its score from last year to 41.