The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad & To­ba­go (Am­Cham TT) is sup­port­ing the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ (DPP) call for the re­moval of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) from the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Am­Cham TT said the prop­er func­tion­ing of the ACIB is crit­i­cal in com­bat­ing the scourge of white-col­lar crime and en­sur­ing that T&T is a ju­ris­dic­tion in which the rule of law pre­vails. It not­ed that to achieve this, cor­rup­tion among pub­lic of­fi­cials and po­lit­i­cal­ly-con­nect­ed rogue el­e­ments of the pri­vate sec­tor must be root­ed out.

“We be­lieve that hav­ing the ACIB un­der a po­lit­i­cal of­fice does not lend to best prac­tices in the thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of cor­rupt per­sons. Re­gard­less of the ad­min­is­tra­tion, this sit­u­a­tion may al­low for po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and com­pro­mise of sen­si­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“We, there­fore, call on the au­thor­i­ties to re­view the cur­rent poli­cies and pro­ce­dures re­lat­ed to the ACIB and take the nec­es­sary ac­tions to phys­i­cal­ly and op­er­a­tional­ly in­te­grate the Bu­reau in­to the TTPS,” the or­gan­i­sa­tion urged.

It added that Am­Cham TT re­mains un­apolo­getic in its stance against white-col­lar crime, as it be­lieves that its eco­nom­ic and so­ci­etal im­pacts can be far cost­lier than may be per­ceived.

It said this is ev­i­dent by T&T’s “less than ad­mirable rank­ing” on the re­cent Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tion In­dex, where the re­port cites “is­sues such as bribery, gov­ern­ment’s in­abil­i­ty to treat with cor­rup­tion and the un­will­ing­ness to re­port on cor­rup­tion by cit­i­zens” as some of the rea­sons why the coun­try con­tin­ues to see no im­prove­ment in this rank­ing.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, T&T’s in­clu­sion in the 2017 Glob­al Busi­ness Rule of Law and Busi­ness Dash­board re­port showed that this coun­try ranked 43rd out of 72 coun­tries across the world. This re­port mea­sures cat­e­gories re­lat­ing to pro­cure­ment, busi­ness reg­u­la­tions and li­cens­es and ju­di­cial im­par­tial­i­ty, among many oth­ers.

Am­Cham TT’s pres­i­dent Pa­tri­cia Ghany said, “T&T’s per­for­mance in both rank­ings can be used as tools to mea­sure the coun­try’s at­trac­tive­ness for in­vest­ment. Am­Cham T&T is con­cerned that when we do not take the nec­es­sary steps to im­prove, Trinidad and To­ba­go may be seen as a less at­trac­tive place to do busi­ness.”

Ghany added that in a time when neigh­bour­ing coun­tries are tak­ing huge steps to im­prove their at­trac­tive­ness to in­vestors and cre­at­ing a more fa­cil­i­ta­tive busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, T&T should en­sure that it is do­ing the same.

“Tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion to­wards mov­ing the ACIB will show that Trinidad & To­ba­go is se­ri­ous about tack­ling cor­rup­tion in all as­pects of so­ci­ety, there­by in­spir­ing greater con­fi­dence that T&T is open for busi­ness and that the Gov­ern­ment, re­gard­less of par­ty in pow­er, will act fair­ly and im­par­tial­ly,” Ghany urged.