When it comes to White-Collar Crime in our Republic, we are once again being forced to ask if Justice is truly blind and, more to the point, whether we are ever going to see that concept in effect.
During the PP government 2010 to 2015, we saw then-AG, Anand Ramlogan, investigating and launching lawsuits against the former Board members of UTT, e-Teck and Petrotrin for various breaches of Directors’ legal duties. While those were deeply political actions, taken by a politician, to the best of my knowledge those were pioneering cases testing the limits of Directors’ responsibilities under S99 of the Companies Act. The targets were obviously the Chairmen of those State-owned Enterprises, Professor Ken Julien and the late Malcolm Jones, both of whom could be regarded as prime PNM operatives. Despite his political motivations, I respected then-AG Ramlogan’s actions as setting a new high-water mark in our public sector governance and accountability.
The Freedom of Information Act 1999 (FoIA) is part of what I call the “RLM Suite” of Legacy Policy – reforms championed during the tenure of then-AG Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj. That suite included the FoIA, the Judicial Review law, the activation of the Integrity Commission, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act. Together they represented a deliberate attempt to empower citizens and hold public institutions accountable.
I chose the phrase ‘Legacy Policy’ to denote a particular type of law which it is all but impossible to reverse, due to its manifest good sense and popularity. So, although our Courts have widely recognised the transformative concepts at the heart of the FoIA, with leading rulings now cited internationally, with approval, as examples of progressive jurisprudence, there is still a deep dis-ease with the very Freedom of Information, at the political level.
In the early 2000s, the then-PNM administration, under the late Patrick Manning, made ambitious urban development proposals intended to reduce the State’s historic dependence on private-sector landlords.
That program was executed by UDECOTT, under the hand of Calder Hart, with 2.3M square feet of offices constructed by the State in POS. The iconic, elliptical, blue-glass office tower on Independence Square is Nicholas Towers, which contains 100,000 sf of offices – so our Public Money funded the construction of new offices 23 times the size of Nicholas Towers.
Apart from the staggering UDECOTT corruption confirmed at the 2009 Uff Enquiry, I have always had nagging doubts as to whether that massive office construction program actually achieved its objectives. Despite my efforts, it was never clear if our monthly rental bill for State offices had in fact been significantly reduced as a result of that UDECOTT program. There certainly have been no official declarations of that achievement, which one would expect if indeed that had been the case, given our political culture.
In October 2023, I exchanged points with then Public Administration Minister, Ms Allison West, on the conflicting and incomplete details of the State’s leasing of the former RBC HQ building at Park St in POS for the Office of the DPP. At that time, then-Minister West attempted a rebuttal of my claims of massive corruption, but that was rendered nugatory by both her failure to provide any substantiation for the details of the Public Monies spent on that failed project and her claims that all the details of State leases were available on the ‘Property & Real Estate portal’ at https://pmis.gov.tt/. That link remains a dead one, so the information is as yet inaccessible to the public. At that time, I asked the question –
‘Why not make the entire database readily accessible to the public, just like the EBC list?’.
There was no reply, so no details were provided.
I was therefore pleased to hear the statement by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC to the 22nd May 2025 post-Cabinet Press Briefing in which the issue of secrecy/confidentiality of State office rentals was specifically addressed –
“…We will release the existing list to the Public, in the interest of Transparency…this is your Money, this is Taxpayers’ Money, and you have a right to know where your Money is being spent…So Minister has been given the authority to release that list of the rentals, for you to see what has been happening, in secret and, in some cases, illegally…if public members don’t want people to know that we are renting your building, Government is renting your building, with Taxpayers’ Money, then too bad for you, don’t rent-out your building, do not rent-out your building if you don’t want people to know that you are renting your building to the Government…simple as that, so don’t come and cry and plead ‘privacy’, there is no privacy when we are spending Taxpayers’ Dollars…there can be no defence of ‘Privacy’, or you don’t want your name out there…”
I entirely agree with those emphatic statements from our PM, Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC, so I am calling for all the details of the State’s office leases to be published as a searchable database showing Addresses: Owners’ identities: Square footage: Carparking: Rental paid: Lease terms (i.e. start and finish dates): Repairing/Maintenance obligations.
Afra Raymond was interviewed by Steve Khan, Richard Ragoobarsingh, Paul Richards and Wendell Stephens on the Power Breakfast Show on Power 102 FM discussing the collapse of the Piarco Airport corruption case that involved defendants all the way up to and including the Prime Minister. The pattern of the failure to convict white collar criminals in Trinidad and Tobago is noted and a solution is offered to reverse the trend. Audio courtesy Power 102 FM
“It is no laughing matter when it comes to corruption in high and low places. Little and big bribes, kickbacks and dishonesty…Can it be cleaned up?” Caribbean journalist from Barbados, Julian Rogers interviewed Afra Raymond along with Dr. Troy Thomas former Head of TI Guyana, who successfully challenged the EXXON-Mobil contract in October 2020 in Guyana’s High Court and Ms. Jeanette Calder the Executive Director of Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal on transparency and corruption on his show “Caribbean Bridges”. Video courtesy Caribbean Bridges.
How I winced at the 2014 FCB IPO imbroglio in the media recently with the announcement of three Settlement Agreements of 20th December 2019 between the TTSEC and the four parties under investigation. Those agreements required the parties to pay fines totalling $2.8M, about 22% of the total profit of about $12.7M created by the various manoeuvres.
Those Settlement Agreements and Bourse’s statement of 3rd February 2020 confirmed no admission of wrongdoing, guilt or liability, so one is considering only alleged breaches. Of course we have no idea as to the costs incurred by TTSEC in pursuing this matter over those six years and how those compare to the agreed fines.
The Managing Director of Bourse is Subhas Ramkhelewan, who was serving as Chairman of the T&T Stock Exchange and an Independent Senator at the time these allegations arose. The Chairman of the Bourse group is Ingrid Lashley, who is also the Chairman of National Enterprises Limited. Both Subhas and Ingrid have been my good friends over an extended period, not at all limited to our professional lives, which is why this is so, so what?
In an ideal world, the entire profit would have been disgorged together with the dividends earned during the period, before any penalties or regulator’s costs were applied, but that is not the situation at all.
I have three concerns –
TTSEC’s no lessons learned? – It is disappointing to note that these Settlements with agreed payments, no admissions and no remedial action, seem to leave the investing public no better protected. Just imagine police officers stopping a motorist with defective headlights one night and issuing a standard ticket after engaging with the driver who really did not realise the problem with the vehicle. So far so good, you might say, but what would you think if those officers allowed that polite motorist to continue driving on the road with no headlights? The lack of any prescribed remedial action is intolerable in this situation;
So why was a fine paid? – It is only barely possible to sustain the line set out in the Settlements with no admissions of wrongdoing or any finding of truth of the allegations, but the thorny question remains. The payment of a traffic ticket by an errant motorist is tantamount to an admission that some rule was broken which makes it necessary to pay that fine. It does not rise to the level of an actual conviction in law as recorded by the courts, but the fact is that the driver pays the fine is a tangible admission of wrongdoing. So are we being asked to believe that Bourse was just giving something back?;
Has Bourse learnt anything? – Most striking for me is the penultimate sentence of the Bourse statement–
…This Agreement allows us to put this Matter behind us and to focus, even more so, on adding value to our clients and other stakeholders…
Polite disdain is no road to progress. The opportunity was not taken to examine internal practices to prevent a recurrence of those concerns from our Regulator or to commit to staff training in the areas identified during our meetings with the Regulator. So will any of Bourse’s conduct or procedures be revised?
These three, taken together, taste terrible. Serious challenges require mature leadership which is willing to change course or seek advice as new perspectives and facts emerge. That is the behaviour of thinking, conscientious leaders.
Afra Raymond was a speaker at the 2019 Annual Conference of the Human Resource Management Association of T&T (HRMATT) on Thursday 31st October 2019 at Hyatt Regency. His topic was “Whistleblower lessons – from Gene Miles to 21st Century Management Styles.”
Programe Length: 00:48: 39 Programe Date: 31 October 2019
Afra Raymond talks about corruption with host Keenan Munro on his show ‘People About Nation’. Using examples from the research Afra has done, the conversation delves into the pattern of corrupt practices in the nation from CL Financial bailout to other local issue. Video courtesy Synergy TV
Programme Date: 9 May 2019 Programme Length: 00:44:11
Are we seeing a rising tide of corruption scandals, or an increase in the level of public awareness and demands for transparency? Marla Dukharan and Afra Raymond discuss:
The latest Corruption Perception Index – as a region how did we fare?
Trinidad and Tobago – The overall trend is not improving, but is anything being done to address this?
Petrojam, Petrotrin fake oil, Sandals – a look at the recent corruption scandals.
This is my interview with Abby Martin, a journalist working on behalf of the [Peter] Allard Prize Foundation, on the scope of my work with a focus on my anti-corruption work. Ms. Martin compiles videos with select nominees for the Allard Prize for International Integrity, of which I am one.
Afra Raymond talks about corruption with host Keenan Munro on his show ‘People About Nation’. Using examples from the research Afra has done, the conversation delves into the pattern of corrupt practices in the nation from CL Financial bailout to other local issue. Video courtesy Synergy TV
Are we seeing a rising tide of corruption scandals, or an increase in the level of public awareness and demands for transparency? Marla Dukharan and Afra Raymond discuss:
