The Whistleblower Protection Bill 2015 was submitted to Parliament on Friday 13th December 2015. Those proposals will create legal protections for persons making reports of wrongdoing in both public and private bodies. A Joint Select Committee has been established to examine these proposals and report back to the Parliament no later than 22nd January 2016
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This is a first step in the right direction for T&T, to reduce illegal, corrupt behavior in both public and private sector. It will certainly lift a burden from the necks of the taxpayers and give the younger generation some hope that those whom they choose to represent them and pay their salaries are not above the law or free to corrupt the whole society without being conscious of some form of punishment for their disgusting behaviors, they will be aware that they are being watched at all times…..you go Trinidad..
Didn’t T&T roll out Integrity Legislation with very high expectation and with what result?
That is why I said some. .none of it is an inoculation againt corrrupt politicians or business people, they would have to want to be not corrupt, but it will give them pause knowing that not only are they being watched, but their names can be published at any time.
The political class here would stand shoulder to shoulder against anything like this. Something like this would turn Barbados upside down. One can still dream.
A pity this report has a cutoff of population one million.
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Baje is right….is that not a shame. Anymore international funding to Barbados should be tied to reducing corruption on the island or let them drown trying to keep the economy afloat without international aid.. The island is now world famous for this blight the politicians keep holding on to like it’s their lifeline.
@David, I completely agree with you at at 7:03 AM…lotta talk. The real test of these various legislative proposals is what the gov’t officials actually DO. This T&T gov’t, for example, has not acted in any forcefully different way related to CLICO or other local T&T scandals to give real sense that things would substantively be different. Here ‘forcefully different’ means for example allowing court rulings for the disclosure of records/documentation to proceed and remove appeal briefs.
And as clearly related here in Barbados, Afra sounds a clarion call about gov’t institutions. He cites the act proposal to regulate “conduct that shows gross mismanagement, impropriety or misconduct in the carrying out of any activity that involves the use of public funds”. GREAT INTENTIONS (my words and emphasis).
And then he says: “The main concern here is that the failure of some of the largest State Enterprises to produce audited accounts for years on end place them squarely within this class of ‘improper conduct’ … Will those organisations get a ‘free pass’ and continued access to Public Money, or is this a new beginning?”
How can any government be serious or be taken seriously about these things when their own house is completely out of order? The BU expert analysts (Walter, Artax) have also spoken repeatedly of the Auditor General’s yearly reports on gov’t lack of proper records/auditing!!!
And Afra’s summary says it WELL: “Finally, we return to the age-old question of just when are we going to seriously investigate, prosecute and conviction (sic) the white collar criminals … Without an effective process to take these criminals to prison and recover stolen monies we will be only be ‘spinning top in mud’. …”
Caribbean mud is soft and very play friendly…it seems!
BTW, David re 9:51 post, since when did Guyana have a population greater than 1 million? For that alone I discount the entire article that Jam is doing good things re transparency (LOLLL)…but seriously kudos to Jamaica on that front.
And alas Guyana despite its large land expanse is obviously incorrectly listed by the report next to DR, T&T or Jamaica re size of population.
@Dee Word
Agree with you. How can we showboat about our corruption/transparency indices and not factor decades of auditor general reports and tardy audited financials with not a boy being held accountable. What did Doc in the great western Tombstone say to Wyatt on his death bed? “My hypocrisy knows no bounds!”
@ David
Say what you like, the REAL answer to integrity legislation and transparency is to institute 21st century whistleblowing ….and that will NOT happen by politicians passing any shiite legislation.
Modern whistleblowing is going to look A LOT like Naked Departure.
Sherri Veronica has created a new trail that, while it requires some fine-tuning (like opportunities for much wider feedback and for official responses) has attracted the kind of grass-roots attention that gives it the potential to make a difference.
Something is needed that will FORCE all public policy to be undertaken in the full glare of public scrutiny….
BU has done a good job of preparing the way, but you are FAR ‘too nice a guy’ for the task of cleaning up the lotta shiite involved…
@Bush Tea
You are probably correct, we have a role and when the time is right we will pass the baton.
The flaw in your argument is that no one approach will solve the problem. We all have to do a job.
As to what my learned colleague said at 7.12 pm and your own response at 7.18 I would wish to say that “there is the National Enquirer” which Naked Departure and the Sunday Punch mirror and then there is the Wall Street Journal which Barbados Underground is.
At the Embassy of the United States of America (in every country where there is an embassy) there is a political officer/analyst, whatever you wish to call him or her, their business cards normally will say Economic Advisor, CIA operative, who sits and distills the cuttings that a lowly clerk is required to make for every newspaper in and across the jurisdiction that they service.
Depending on the specific area that will also include “coterminous zones”
These clippings form part of the compiled information that feeds into the threat assessments generated daily (which is why Benghazi seems to be such a “purposed catastrophe” as it resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.
As if “allowed” to be an embarrassment for the Obama led Administration.
I know AC, I know, another conspiracy theory for an ignoramus like you hahahaha.
So in compiling that report from the ND and BU articles, skimming the dog pup, AC/Legend and focusing on the big boys, like frustrated Businessman, Bush Tea, Jeff Cumberbatch, Amused, Caswell and OF COURSE WALTER BLACKMAN they have, in the absence of the one one one interviews that Wikileaks mashed up, they have a cheap tool of quasi actionable intelligence complimented by their cocktail parties and Wives of American Servicemen now re-christined and operating as ***
it is not to say that Peter Harris does not come “on scope” for the US, like how Haloute and the other fellows are on scope, even my boy Alex for his role in the wiretapping exercises only get a single tick/demerit, but it will not cause them or other agencies too much worry.
Tek notes AC, tek notes.
They review certain of the Naked Departure submissions ONLY for those “persons of interest” that they deem important so if my man Hants or Lawson was to go there accompanies by me, all uh we would be given free passes, dem as middle aged men with parts still wukking, me as an ole men with Lazarus hopes of raising de dead!!
Naked Departure provides a source of minimal information which, at present is, on a scale of 1-10, a “3 to 4”.
Don’t get this wrong, NDs focus on “who bulling who, who is being bulled by who, who is filming who is bulling and being bulled and of course the wickers”, is only important, IF it compromises their interest in the region. Biting out a clitoris is not something that will overthrow Putin or put a bullet in Kim Jong-Un if exposed to the people in the jurisdiction. It has no leverage value.
Bim don’t count unless they need to stage a mission against Maduro where planes need to be refuelled to protect Guyana, rather American Oil Drilling interests in the Essequibo, and Fumbles refused landing rights to USAF planes, den de tapes will come out.
Naked Departure is the home of the “unbridled and salacious intertwined” reflecting those Ehrmann words ” where they “…listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story…”
BU is the litmus test by which they can determine how far into the realm of anarchy and revolution the big up peeple going go in Barbados, cause wunna dun know dat when *** planning tuh do dem ting, dat dem gine talk wid somebody like AC and Alvin Cummins and since dem ent no fridge, dem gine come heah and say tings like “kill a few people and crack some heads…”
@PUDRYR
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