Young confident new laws will improve Trinidad and Tobago's corruption ranking

Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young says he is optimistic that Trinidad and Tobago's global Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking will improve during the next annual report to reflect the work done by the government in implementing legislation to improve transparency and accountability.

At a webinar in January, the Transparency Institute (TITT) announced that TT showed a slight improvement in its ranking, moving from number 40 in 2021 to 41 in 2022.

The CPI is calculated using international economic and civil oversight groups which rank 180 countries on a scale from 100 (very transparent) to 0 (highly corrupt).

Responding to a question in the Lower House on Wednesday, Young said TT's ranking was based on data gathered from 2020, and argued that work done in reducing corruption would not be visible until the next report was published.

He referred to legislation passed to better regulate the gaming industry, amendments to civil-asset-recovery acts and the introduction of policies to tackle malfeasance in the public and private sector.

"The government over the past year has passed the Gambling, Gaming and Betting Control Act 2021 to regulate an industry flagged by the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as a root contributor in money laundering and corruption matters.

"We also passed the TT Revenue Authority Act 2021, assented to on December 23, 2021, to treat with the better administration of revenue, and in particular to allow for the elimination of tax evasion as a predicate offence in money laundering, which is a hallmark of corruption; and three, to introduce the Representation of the People (Amendment) No 2 Bill 2020, now referred to a parliamentary joint select committee (JSC) to treat with the issue of campaign finance legislation, which has been flagged as a root cause of corruption.

"We have also passed the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act 2020 and the ten regulations required to operationalise the act with the regulations affirmed by the Senate in February 2022, which will improve the systems of procurement across all public bodies, again addressing a core issues."

Young also said whistleblower legislation was introduced in Parliament in January.

He stressed the importance of such laws to protect witnesses to misconduct, highlighting the need for opposition support in passing the legislation.

Caribbean countries which scored higher than TT in this year's CPI were Barbados (65), the Bahamas (64), St Vincent and the Grenadines (59), Dominica (55), Grenada (53) and Jamaica (44).