The Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) has con­demned the de­ci­sion to re­align the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) un­der the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, warn­ing that the move threat­ens the bu­reau’s in­de­pen­dence and risks po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, TT­TI said the de­ci­sion un­der­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence and cre­ates a clear con­flict of in­ter­est, as it claimed the Gov­ern­ment would ef­fec­tive­ly over­see po­ten­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to its own mem­bers.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so ar­gued that plac­ing the ACIB un­der the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice pos­es sim­i­lar risks since po­lice of­fi­cers may al­so face al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion or po­lit­i­cal bias.

“The fight against cor­rup­tion de­mands an en­force­ment body that is ful­ly in­de­pen­dent, ad­e­quate­ly re­sourced, and com­plete­ly in­su­lat­ed from po­lit­i­cal over­sight,” TT­TI said.

The in­sti­tute de­scribed the move as a “re­gres­sive step” that could erode pub­lic trust and weak­en the rule of law.

It re­called that the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment, in its 2015 re­port on the ACIB, had out­lined a stronger frame­work for its in­de­pen­dence and op­er­a­tions.

TT­TI urged the Gov­ern­ment to adopt the com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly the es­tab­lish­ment of the ACIB as a ful­ly in­de­pen­dent agency, sep­a­rate from both the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice and the Po­lice Ser­vice.

It said such a mod­el, which al­lows for op­er­a­tional au­ton­o­my, bud­getary in­de­pen­dence, and in­ves­tiga­tive im­par­tial­i­ty, rep­re­sents the glob­al stan­dard for ef­fec­tive an­ti-cor­rup­tion agen­cies.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so called for ded­i­cat­ed re­sources, in­clud­ing foren­sic ac­coun­tants, cy­ber­crime spe­cial­ists, and le­gal coun­sel, as well as a pro­tect­ed bud­get to pre­vent po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence over op­er­a­tions.

As an in­ter­im mea­sure, TT­TI sug­gest­ed plac­ing the ACIB un­der an in­de­pen­dent statu­to­ry body such as the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, sup­port­ed by an in­creased bud­get.

TT­TI said now is the time for the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to match its an­ti-cor­rup­tion rhetoric with de­ci­sive ac­tion which shows it is se­ri­ous about erad­i­cat­ing cor­rup­tion.

“Now is the mo­ment for the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to turn an­ti-cor­rup­tion rhetoric in­to ac­tion and build the strong, in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions our democ­ra­cy de­serves,” the state­ment said.