The whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion has been iden­ti­fied as one of the key tools in the fight against cor­rup­tion and there­fore ad­vo­cate bod­ies and con­cerned in­di­vid­u­als see the pas­sage of the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill 2022, as a step in the right di­rec­tion.

Last Fri­day, the bill was passed in the Low­er House, re­sult­ing in 22 votes for and 15 against. Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr. Rai Rag­bir broke ranks with his op­po­si­tion col­leagues and vot­ed for the bill. It is now ex­pect­ed to go to the Up­per House.

The bill is ex­pect­ed to com­bat cor­rup­tion and oth­er wrong­do­ing by en­cour­ag­ing and fa­cil­i­tat­ing dis­clo­sures of im­prop­er con­duct in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

The leg­is­la­tion seeks to pro­tect peo­ple mak­ing those dis­clo­sures from detri­men­tal ac­tion, to reg­u­late the re­ceiv­ing, in­ves­ti­gat­ing, or oth­er­wise deal­ing with dis­clo­sures of im­prop­er con­duct, and to pro­vide for re­lat­ed mat­ters con­nect­ed.

The Busi­ness Guardian spoke to a few sec­tor bod­ies on the im­por­tance of mak­ing this bill law.

The T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) said it is hope­ful that the bill will be brought in­to law soon, as oth­er such im­prove­ments can be achieved by way of amend­ments to the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act to widen the ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty of the Act to more pub­lic of­fi­cials as well as amend­ments to the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act to in­clude po­lit­i­cal par­ties and in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing pub­lic of­fice through the elec­toral process.

The TT­TI said an­oth­er way the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill 2022 will help is by in­creas­ing avail­able re­sources to or­gan­i­sa­tions and en­ti­ties in the pub­lic space that over­see and help com­bat cor­rup­tion. This would in­clude the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, the Fi­nan­cial Om­buds­man and the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion to name a few.

These re­sources, it said, should be made avail­able on a mul­ti-year ba­sis rather than be­ing fund­ed an­nu­al­ly.

Al­so, the whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion al­lows for the open­ing up of the search for hu­man re­source tal­ent be­yond the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to al­low for the con­sid­er­a­tion of re­gion­al op­tions.

Asked how the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill can pro­tect wit­ness­es and vic­tims, the trans­paren­cy body said there is a be­lief that T&T is a high­ly cor­rupt so­ci­ety, how­ev­er, TT­TI’s abil­i­ty to un­earth per­pe­tra­tors has not mir­rored this be­lief.

“Whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for those who know some­thing to say some­thing un­der the pro­tec­tion of law and aid in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of cor­rupt ac­tors.

“As a small is­land state, the fear of detri­men­tal ac­tion for ex­pos­ing cor­rupt prac­tices has been for­ward­ed by wit­ness­es and vic­tims as a rea­son for re­main­ing silent. The Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill starts us on a new path to com­bat cor­rup­tion, through this known and tried path, as it af­fords pro­tec­tions for the whistle­blow­er, bal­anced with the need for the pre­sen­ta­tion of truth­ful po­si­tions. We ful­ly ex­pect this to evolve in its even­tu­al op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion,” TT­TI ex­plained.

Com­ment­ing on the bill, Afra Ray­mond, char­tered sur­vey­or and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Ray­mond & Pierre, said, “Most fraud and white-col­lar crime is re­port­ed by ‘tips’, so the ef­fec­tive tool has to be ‘If you see some­thing, say some­thing’. We al­so need to push for more ef­fec­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, but first, we need high-qual­i­ty in­for­ma­tion.”

Ray­mond, a for­mer Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) pres­i­dent, said the As­so­ci­a­tion of Cer­ti­fied Fraud Ex­am­in­ers 2014 Glob­al Fraud Study iden­ti­fied that whistle­blow­ing is the best method of de­tect­ing fraud.

“Tips are con­sis­tent­ly and by far the most com­mon de­tec­tion method. Over 40 per cent of all cas­es were de­tect­ed by a tip — more than twice the rate of any oth­er de­tec­tion method. Em­ploy­ees ac­count­ed for near­ly half of all tips that led to the dis­cov­ery of fraud,” the study shows.

Ray­mond not­ed that one of the pro­vi­sions in the bill that drew his at­ten­tion was im­prop­er con­duct. He said that the main con­cern here is the fail­ure of some of the largest state en­ter­pris­es to pro­duce au­dit­ed ac­counts for years on end plac­ing them square­ly with­in this class of ‘im­prop­er con­duct’ since there is no way to prop­er­ly op­er­ate a sub­stan­tial en­ter­prise with­out ac­counts.

“That would be com­plete­ly un­ac­cept­able in the pri­vate sec­tor and pub­lic mon­ey must be man­aged and ac­count­ed for to a high­er stan­dard than pri­vate mon­ey,” said Ray­mond.

Giv­ing its per­spec­tive on the mat­ter, the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try & Com­merce (GT­CIC), said the whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion en­hances trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, pro­tects in­di­vid­u­als who re­port mis­con­duct, pro­motes eth­i­cal busi­ness prac­tices, en­sures le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance and strength­ens pub­lic con­fi­dence in both pub­lic and pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions.

“By adopt­ing and en­forc­ing such leg­is­la­tion, the coun­try can fos­ter a more ro­bust, trans­par­ent, and trust­wor­thy eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment, ul­ti­mate­ly con­tribut­ing to sus­tained eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment. When po­ten­tial whistle­blow­ers know they are pro­tect­ed, they are more like­ly to re­port mis­con­duct, lead­ing to more ef­fec­tive over­sight and com­pli­ance,” the cham­ber de­tailed.

On the is­sue of cam­paign fi­nance re­form, the GT­CIC out­lined that that is deemed crit­i­cal as the coun­try con­tin­ues to de­vel­op its de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions and seeks to en­hance the in­tegri­ty and fair­ness of its elec­toral process­es.

“Lev­el­ling the play­ing field for all po­lit­i­cal par­ties as it lim­its the in­flu­ence of mon­ey in pol­i­tics, cam­paign fi­nance re­form can en­cour­age a more di­verse group of can­di­dates to run for of­fice, re­flect­ing a broad­er spec­trum of so­ci­ety who will seek our best in­ter­ests,” the busi­ness group opined.

Ray­mond said he has al­ways had the view that cam­paign fi­nance trans­paren­cy of­fers false ben­e­fits.

“So, it has nev­er been part of my cam­paign­ing,” he said.

Fur­ther, the T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute high­light­ed that po­lit­i­cal par­ties are es­sen­tial to the sys­tem of gov­er­nance and have valid fi­nan­cial re­quire­ments. Still, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty must be the foun­da­tion of their ac­qui­si­tion of funds.

Any reg­u­la­tion, TT­TI said, must con­sid­er the re­al­is­tic cost of fund­ing a cam­paign while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ad­dress­ing con­cerns by the elec­torate open­ly and trans­par­ent­ly.

“The mantra of re­cent years in the pur­suit of An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing (AML) and Coun­ter­ing the Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism (CFT) has been to fol­low the mon­ey. It should ap­ply to every­one and all en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing our po­lit­i­cal par­ties and in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing of­fice in our elec­toral process,” It added.

Back in March, at a Con­ver­sa­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter fo­rum, Dr. Kei­th Row­ley promised the Gov­ern­ment would bring cam­paign fi­nance leg­is­la­tion back to the floor of the Par­lia­ment some­time this year.

The bill was laid short­ly af­ter the PNM won the Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Cam­paign fi­nance and whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion were two pieces of leg­is­la­tion the ad­min­is­tra­tion said on the elec­tion plat­form were its pri­or­i­ties.