ACIB returns to AG’s office

A BRIEF GAZETTE erratum issued on Sunday, October 5, by the government printery was the first the public heard of the return of the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau (ACIB) to the Office of the Attorney General. The notice was easy to miss given the spate of ministerial portfolio shifts unveiled a day prior. But the move’s significance should escape no one.

The ACIB has long been a hot potato. The entity has its genesis in the Special Investigations Unit, which was established in 1997 as a subdivision of the police’s Criminal Investigations Department to probe corruption among justices of the peace. That remit was widened, with the ACIB taking on public officers and government officials.

It was the ACIB, advised by Karl Hudson-Phillips, that handled the ill-fated Integrity Commission filings probe into Basdeo Panday in 2002. More recently, this same unit was behind action against former attorney general Anand Ramlogan and former UNC senator Gerald Ramdeen in 2019, in a case that was eventually dropped amid much intrigue surrounding the chief witness and the procurement of a purported indemnity under the PNM. The Dr Keith Rowley administration surrendered responsibility for the ACIB to police administration in 2019, after years of the UNC, and others, including this newspaper, calling for the bureau to be removed from political oversight. Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s first administration had raised the possibility of such a shift, but she had not implemented it by the time she left office in 2015.

By strange serendipity, the bureau returns to a ministry headed, once again, by John Jeremie, a former PNM AG and a key figure in the Panday matter, as well as Piarco ACIB probes. Interestingly, the move also comes amid a global surge in radical right-wing politics that defines itself around grievance, culture wars and retribution in law courts. The unit is operationally independent, but some will see the transfer as increasing the risk of partisanship in the justice system, while others will welcome increased oversight given the entity’s unhappy history. Mr Jeremie has, in his fresh UNC incarnation, ominously told PNM MPs, “Watch yourself.”

The Prime Minister’s portfolio reshuffle comes ahead of the annual fiscal presentation, a process that sharpens duties and their demarcation. Ms Persad-Bissessar’s assumption of greater public-facing roles tied to heritage, culture, information and grants is a telling concentration. While the gazette notice suggests she has also self-assigned responsibility for “constitutional reform,” the previous notice in May had already listed “constitutional matters” under her duties. It is too early to tell how these subtle schedule changes will manifest in practice, but they suggest the government has settled down and has entered a new phase. And that phase is about to heat up.