Re­cent­ly, the High Court or­dered the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to pay Ajay Bachan $500,000 af­ter it found that he had been treat­ed un­fair­ly and dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. In May 2025, the State was or­dered to com­pen­sate Mark Vic­tor Ha­gley af­ter the High Court found that he had been wrong­ful­ly ar­rest­ed and false­ly im­pris­oned in a mat­ter in­volv­ing po­lice ac­tion.

The court re­port­ed­ly found that the po­lice had no rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest him, and the State was or­dered to pay him $170,970. This was the fourth time in eight years that the State had to com­pen­sate Ha­gley be­cause of po­lice mis­con­duct, bring­ing the to­tal paid to him to about $1.2 mil­lion.

These are just two of the many cas­es we have seen over the years where the State has had to com­pen­sate cit­i­zens be­cause pub­lic au­thor­i­ties got it wrong. And every time this hap­pens, we must ask the ques­tion: who re­al­ly pays for these fail­ures? The an­swer is sim­ple.

Hard­work­ing tax­pay­ers are the ones who com­pen­sate cit­i­zens who have been wronged, dis­crim­i­nat­ed against, false­ly ar­rest­ed or un­fair­ly treat­ed by pub­lic au­thor­i­ties. The mon­ey doesn’t come from the peo­ple whose ac­tions caused the prob­lem in the first place. It comes from pub­lic funds. We see these pay­outs hap­pen­ing again and again, but very lit­tle is done to fix the sys­tem or hold any­one per­son­al­ly ac­count­able.

It is time for us to ask how much in­com­pe­tence is cost­ing this coun­try, and more im­por­tant­ly, what we plan to do about it. This is not an at­tack on all pub­lic ser­vants. Many work hard un­der dif­fi­cult con­di­tions. But “the sys­tem” is made up of peo­ple, and when their de­ci­sions, bi­as­es, de­lays or fail­ures cost the coun­try mon­ey, there must be ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Right now, the trend is si­lence af­ter a judg­ment and pay­out. Was any­one in­ves­ti­gat­ed, dis­ci­plined or re­trained? Was any pol­i­cy fixed? Was any­thing done to pre­vent a re­peat?

Giv­en that many of these cas­es in­volve the same kinds of is­sues —po­lice mis­con­duct, civ­il ser­vice fail­ures, dis­crim­i­na­tion and poor de­ci­sion-mak­ing—what are we do­ing to make sure that tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey doesn’t con­tin­ue to be wast­ed?

The first thing we need is trans­paren­cy. Cit­i­zens should know how much mon­ey is be­ing paid out every year be­cause of court judg­ments, set­tle­ments and le­gal costs in­volv­ing pub­lic bod­ies.

We should not on­ly hear about these mat­ters when a case makes the news. There should be prop­er re­port­ing on the cost of these fail­ures, which min­istries and agen­cies are in­volved, and whether the same prob­lems keep hap­pen­ing.

The sec­ond thing we need is a prop­er re­view process. Every ma­jor pay­out should trig­ger an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

What went wrong? Who made the de­ci­sion? Was le­gal ad­vice ig­nored? Was there dis­crim­i­na­tion, bias, neg­li­gence or abuse of au­thor­i­ty? Did some­one fail to fol­low ba­sic pro­ce­dure? Once pub­lic mon­ey is used to clean up the mess, the coun­try de­serves an­swers.

The third thing we need is con­se­quence. This is not about at­tack­ing pub­lic ser­vants. It is about mak­ing sure that peo­ple who mis­use their au­thor­i­ty, act un­fair­ly, or fail to do their jobs prop­er­ly can­not con­tin­ue to hide be­hind the State.

If peo­ple need re­train­ing, re­train them. If the pol­i­cy is weak, fix it. If some­one act­ed reck­less­ly, dis­hon­est­ly or with clear dis­re­gard for cit­i­zens, dis­ci­pline them. But do­ing noth­ing can­not re­main the stan­dard re­sponse every time tax­pay­ers are forced to pay for mis­takes, mis­con­duct and fail­ures they did not cre­ate.

Oth­er coun­tries are not per­fect, but many of them take pub­lic sec­tor con­duct se­ri­ous­ly. They have codes of con­duct, in­tegri­ty stan­dards, dis­ci­pli­nary process­es and prop­er re­views when pub­lic of­fi­cers abuse their au­thor­i­ty or fail to do their jobs. I am sure we have some­thing like this in T&T, but how long will the rules just ex­ist on pa­per?

The re­sponse can­not on­ly be to write a cheque from pub­lic funds and move on. There must be con­se­quences and some at­tempt to en­sure that the same thing does not hap­pen again. Do­ing the same thing over and over again is not progress. And we know that we have plen­ty peo­ple in this coun­try who will con­tin­ue to do stu­pid­ness, as long as they know they can get away with it. So, as long as the tax­pay­er qui­et­ly pays the bill, noth­ing will change.

If we are se­ri­ous about ac­count­abil­i­ty, then we have to start ask­ing whether those di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble should be made to pay per­son­al­ly in cas­es where there is clear neg­li­gence, abuse of au­thor­i­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion, or reck­less con­duct.

Pub­lic of­fi­cers must not be afraid to do their jobs, but they must al­so not feel free to dam­age cit­i­zens’ lives be­cause they know they will get away with it be­cause the State will cov­er the cost.

A court pay­out should nev­er be treat­ed as an­oth­er line item in gov­ern­ment spend­ing. And if no­body is held ac­count­able, then the mes­sage is very clear: the State can make the mis­take, the cit­i­zen can suf­fer, and the tax­pay­er will qui­et­ly pick up the bill.