Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill 2022 has been passed in the Up­per House but with­out Op­po­si­tion sup­port.

The bill, which seeks to com­bat cor­rup­tion and oth­er wrong­do­ing by en­cour­ag­ing and fa­cil­i­tat­ing dis­clo­sures of im­prop­er con­duct in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor, to pro­tect peo­ple mak­ing those dis­clo­sures from detri­men­tal ac­tion, re­ceived full sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment and In­de­pen­dent bench­es.

The fi­nal vote end­ed with 23 mem­bers vot­ing in favour, six against and no ab­sten­tions. It was passed with­out amend­ments.

How­ev­er, ear­li­er in the de­bate Gov­ern­ment was ac­cused of be­ing hyp­o­crit­i­cal in its de­sire for whistle­blow­ing leg­is­la­tion. He claimed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ex­pelled one of its long-stand­ing mem­bers for at­tempt­ing to re­veal cor­rup­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts sought to re­mind the Gov­ern­ment bench about for­mer PNM mem­ber and fi­nancier Har­ry Ra­goo­nanan.

Read­ing a news ar­ti­cle from his mo­bile phone, Roberts said Ra­goo­nanan re­port­ed that he be­lieved his ex­pul­sion from the par­ty in 2017 was con­nect­ed to him un­earthing al­leged cor­rup­tion at the Port as it re­lat­ed to the sea bridge fi­as­co with the Bridge­man’s Ser­vices Group.

Roberts ex­claimed, “A PNM mem­ber, a whistle­blow­er was sus­pend­ed for whistle­blow­ing, but the PNM is com­ing here to bring whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion and telling the pub­lic on TV and ra­dio that they are go­ing to fight cor­rup­tion.”

Roberts said the Prime Min­is­ter him­self in 2017 la­belled the Port of Port-of-Spain a den of cor­rup­tion.

“So, the Prime Min­is­ter and leader of the PNM agreed with the whistle­blow­er that some­thing was awry, some­thing was crooked and yet the man still get buss throat, sus­pend­ed and pelt out from the PNM, I say PNM you all give me a rest, I can take no more,” he said to tu­mul­tuous desk thump­ing from fel­low Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the PNM, in 2017, Ra­goo­nanan was sus­pend­ed from the par­ty fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions that he was in­volved in cor­rupt prac­tices and be­hav­iours con­cern­ing the pro­cure­ment of Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion bus­es. Ra­goo­nanan de­nied the claim.

Mean­while, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Suni­ty Ma­haraj said this bill was the most ex­cit­ing piece of leg­is­la­tion she had worked on since her ap­point­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2023.

How­ev­er, she ex­pressed fear that it may be “too hot to han­dle.”

“My hope for this leg­is­la­tion is tem­pered by fear that at the first sign of its po­ten­tial pow­er, we might run. And I am talk­ing about every­body,” she said.

The In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor said she des­per­ate­ly wants this leg­is­la­tion to work and to be passed in its strongest state, un­like what hap­pened with the pro­cure­ment bill which she called ‘a shad­ow of it­self.’. There­fore, she urged the Op­po­si­tion to raise their ob­jec­tions to it ear­ly, even if it re­quires le­gal in­ter­ven­tion.

“And I would en­cour­age the Op­po­si­tion to go to the court at the first pos­si­ble op­por­tu­ni­ty, do not wait for when we have a case, when some­body should be found guilty but they can’t be­cause it is found to be un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, we want to know that we stand on good ground with this piece of leg­is­la­tion and if it is found to be un­con­sti­tu­tion­al then we will come back and get it on its legs prop­er­ly,” Ma­haraj ad­vised.