Trinidad & Tobago is the only English-speaking country to be named in the 2009 Global Corruption Report which was released on November 17th. Out of a total of 180 countries, the oil-rich nation is ranked 72nd on the most corrupt scale, for 2008.
According to the analysis undertaken by Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute, while the limited entrepreneurial pool is recognized given the country’s small size and individuals may serve in multiple leadership positions, there is growing concern that, when not properly regulated, “overlapping directorships leave state resources and private shareholder equity vulnerable to allegations of manipulation and insider dealings.”
The Report calls attention to the case where in March 2007 the company Stone Street Capital paid US$17.8 million for over40 per cent of the shares of Home Mortgage Bank (HMB), which is partly owned by the state. At the time of the purchase, Stone Street Capital coowner André Monteil was chairman of both HMB and the privately owned Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) Investment Bank, which sold the HMB shares to Stone Street Capital.
While the sales were called into question, the Report points out that “whereas even a few years earlier the purchase might not have been legal, legislative changes in 2005 and 2007 paved the way for the sales.”
The Report underscores that the the government’s failure to address the implications of highly overlapping directorships undermines public trust and threatens the integrity of the state. Furthermore, it argues, “if overlapping directorships continue to be a facet of Trinidad and Tobago’s public and private enterprises, the door remains open for conflicts of interest to tempt those in positions of power to abuse their status for personal gain.”
The Report concludes by recommending reform of the regulatory framework that would require enterprises with overlapping directorships to exercise standards of transparency and accountability.
Overall, the authors of the Global Corruption Report 2009, note that the evidence is conclusive and troublesome. Corruption it argues is a central and growing challenge for business and society, from informal vendors in the least developed countries to multinational companies in industrialized ones, for citizens, communities and nations, all over the world.
The Report makes several recommendations that business, civil society, governments and other stakeholders should take on board, if corruption is to be tackled and not undermine economic growth and political stability.
The United States ranks 18th out of 180 countries on the corruption scale in the Global Corruption Report 2009.
Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report (GCR) is the authoritative annual publication on the
state of the fight against corruption.
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