NAME THEM!

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

As pres­sure mounts on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to iden­ti­fy the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors she claims at­tempt­ed to trade their votes for per­son­al favours, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion says it can­not act with­out specifics.

Com­mis­sion chair­man Ha­dyn Git­tens said any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­leged mis­con­duct in the Sen­ate re­quires the iden­ti­ties of those ac­cused and clear de­tails of the favours al­leged­ly sought, stress­ing that the com­mis­sion can­not pro­ceed on “un­sup­port­ed al­le­ga­tions.”

On Wednes­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a so­cial me­dia post, claimed that dur­ing de­bate on the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion, two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ap­proached a se­nior gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor seek­ing per­son­al favours in ex­change for se­cur­ing sup­port and the re­main­ing votes need­ed for the bill’s pas­sage. A re­quest, the Prime Min­is­ter said, that was im­me­di­ate­ly re­ject­ed.

Since mak­ing the al­le­ga­tion, Guardian Me­dia has on more than one oc­ca­sion asked the Prime Min­is­ter to iden­ti­fy the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors or the gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor who was al­leged­ly ap­proached. How­ev­er, she has so far de­clined to do so.

Sev­er­al in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have al­so force­ful­ly re­ject­ed that claim, with both sen­a­tors An­tho­ny Vieira and Fran­cis Lewis call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter to name the al­leged of­fend­ers.

If proven, any at­tempt by a sen­a­tor to seek per­son­al favours in ex­change for a vote could breach sev­er­al laws in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man to as­cer­tain if there is enough ev­i­dence in the pub­lic do­main that can trig­ger the com­mis­sion to take ac­tion, he said, “It doesn’t ap­pear to be. And again, as I said, I don’t know if, while we speak, some­thing more, let’s say com­pre­hen­sive, has come in­to the com­mis­sion on this mat­ter. It doesn’t ap­pear to be on the face of it be­cause es­sen­tial­ly the com­mis­sion and any body sim­i­lar to the com­mis­sion has to take ac­tion if it’s in­ves­ti­gat­ing a spe­cif­ic per­son for a spe­cif­ic act. So in the ab­sence of that, it cre­ates a dif­fi­cul­ty in terms of any ac­tion by the com­mis­sion or any sim­i­lar body.”

Asked what the role of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion is when an al­le­ga­tion of that na­ture is made, Git­tens said, “So for an al­le­ga­tion to be use­ful and pro­ba­tive, there has to be specifics. So, some­one, cer­tain­ly the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, can’t be ex­pect­ed to act on an un­sup­port­ed al­le­ga­tion. So, if some­one specif­i­cal­ly says X, a pub­lic fig­ure did Y, and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion finds that falls with­in its am­bit, be­cause the law is very spe­cif­ic about the ar­eas in which the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has over­sight, then the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion acts on that ba­sis.”

Up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Git­tens said he had no word that any of­fi­cial com­plaint was sub­mit­ted with re­spect to the Prime Min­is­ter’s claim, but he al­so ad­mit­ted that com­plaints do not come di­rect­ly to the chair­man.

Mean­while, Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day is call­ing on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ei­ther name the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors or with­draw the al­le­ga­tion en­tire­ly.

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader added, “That is a se­ri­ous claim and one that can­not re­spon­si­bly be left vague. If the Prime Min­is­ter is as­sert­ing that pub­lic of­fi­cials sought in­duce­ments in ex­change for votes, then she must ex­plain pre­cise­ly what was re­quest­ed and name those in­volved so the mat­ter can be prop­er­ly as­sessed by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.”

She stressed that if the Prime Min­is­ter has ev­i­dence, it must be placed be­fore the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties rather than left as com­men­tary on so­cial me­dia.

“Un­til the Prime Min­is­ter pro­vides specifics of what was re­quest­ed, by whom and when, this al­le­ga­tion re­mains un­re­solved and deeply trou­bling. Claims of cor­rup­tion can­not live in so­cial me­dia posts. They be­long in the light of ac­count­abil­i­ty, ev­i­dence and the rule of law.”

Pan­day said the coun­try was await­ing dis­clo­sure or clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter.

“Name them or with­draw the al­le­ga­tion,” she added.

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath warned that mak­ing such se­ri­ous claims pub­licly with­out trig­ger­ing a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion risks un­der­min­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions.

“To lev­el such a charge pub­licly and then re­treat from the le­gal and in­sti­tu­tion­al con­se­quences is not coura­geous; it is cor­ro­sive. It poi­sons pub­lic trust, smears in­di­vid­u­als with­out due process, and leaves the coun­try to won­der whether the al­le­ga­tion is truth­ful or mere­ly a de­flec­tion from the fail­ure of her Gov­ern­ment to deal with the is­sue of crime,” he stat­ed.

Bharath al­so ques­tioned what he de­scribed as an ap­par­ent in­con­sis­ten­cy in the Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­proach to trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“The Prime Min­is­ter was quick to re­veal the names of hold­ers of bus route pass­es, yet she fails to act on these scur­rilous al­le­ga­tions that strike at the heart of our democ­ra­cy and our in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia sought com­ment from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on the al­le­ga­tions made against the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, over whom she has con­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­i­ty. Ques­tions were sub­mit­ted to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, and re­ceipt was ac­knowl­edged. How­ev­er, no re­sponse was re­ceived up to late yes­ter­day.

Un­der the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act (Chap. 11:11), it is a crim­i­nal of­fence for any “agent”, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Sen­ate, to cor­rupt­ly so­lic­it or re­ceive any “ad­van­tage” as an in­duce­ment or re­ward for per­form­ing, or re­frain­ing from per­form­ing, an of­fi­cial act. An “ad­van­tage” is broad­ly de­fined and in­cludes mon­ey, gifts, favours, of­fices, or in­flu­ence. On con­vic­tion, of­fend­ers can face fines of up to $500,000 and im­pris­on­ment of up to 10 years.

Un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act (Chap. 22:01), sen­a­tors are clas­si­fied as “per­sons in pub­lic life” and are bound by a strict Code of Con­duct that pro­hibits us­ing pub­lic of­fice for pri­vate gain or seek­ing any ben­e­fit that could in­flu­ence of­fi­cial du­ties. The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion is em­pow­ered to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints and re­fer any crim­i­nal find­ings to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Sep­a­rate­ly, un­der the com­mon law of­fence of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, a pub­lic of­fi­cial who abus­es their po­si­tion in a way that breach­es pub­lic trust, in­clud­ing seek­ing in­duce­ments for of­fi­cial ac­tion, may al­so face crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.