Caribbean governments must seize anti-corruption initiative
International Anti-corruption Day:
By Indra Jeet Mistry
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
Guyana Chronicle
December 9, 2006
LAST year, the United Nations Convention against Corruption became the first legally binding, global anti-corruption agreement, marking an historic milestone in the fight against corruption.
One year on, with December 9 being celebrated as International Anti-corruption Day, in the Caribbean, only Trinidad and Tobago and Antigua and Barbuda can count themselves as signatories to the convention.
This is despite the fact that corruption remains rife across the region and has had the debilitating effect of eating into the economic prosperity, democratic development and civil society’s trust in government.
Endemic corruption in the Caribbean was recently reflected in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index. Of the Caribbean countries surveyed, Jamaica was viewed as the least corrupt but was placed at only 66, while Guyana’s performance was especially poor, coming in at 121 out of a potential 163.
The convention for the first time provides a single, overarching means for all countries in the region to fight and remove the scourge of corruption that has for long hampered their development. More specifically, chapter two of the convention provides different measures that a country should implement to help stop the rot of corruption and remove the fog of secrecy that often clouds government operations and decision-making processes.
One means by which Caribbean countries can go a long way to battling corruption is by adopting and implementing an effective right to information law, which would also underpin many of the other measures set out in the convention.
Indeed, there have been some positive signs that Caribbean countries are beginning to understand the benefits of adopting an RTI law with Jamaica recently celebrating two years of implementing its Access to Information Act, while Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago also operate their own laws.
Freedom of information (FOI) Bills are in the process of being drafted in Guyana and the Cayman Islands, while Bermuda has also announced its willingness to implement a law.
The right to information, or freedom of information as it is more commonly known, has long been recognised as a foundational human right, ever since the UN General Assembly declared in 1946 that “freedom of information is a fundamental human right and a touchstone of all freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.”
Since then, the Organisation of American States and the Commonwealth - of which many Caribbean states are members - have also endorsed minimum standards on the right to information. More countries in the region now need to recognise this fundamental right and realise the benefits that implementing such a law can bring, particularly in regard to cracking down on corruption.
An effective right to information law puts an obligation on the government to regularly disclose as much information as possible about its policies and decisions to the public, and provide information to individuals on request.
Disclosing information should be subject to an overriding principle that all information should be disclosed, unless the harm caused by disclosure is greater than the public interest in accessing the information. The information should be accessible in a user-friendly, cheap, quick and simple way and the government should be required to conduct ongoing training for government officials and educate the public on the right to information.
The right to information acts as an important tool in fighting corruption because it can effectively transform the strong and traditional culture of secrecy within government into one of transparency and openness.
In the Caribbean, politicians and government officials have for too long taken advantage of this culture of secrecy, where the local media often reports on the numerous ways in which officials have lined their own pockets with public funds.
The adoption of a right to information law can shed light on the behaviour of government officials by empowering citizens with a tool to help scrutinise and monitor government decision-making and bring public officials and politicians to account.
Empowering citizens in this manner can also help strengthen democracy by making government directly accountable to its citizens on a day-to-day basis rather than just at election time.
Even at election time, a right to information law ensures that voters have better access to information concerning the government’s record in office, allowing them to make a more informed decision at the ballot box, instead of relying on often dubious political propaganda.
An effective right to information law also helps to ensure that governments formulate and implement development projects in a responsible, transparent and participatory manner. Development projects often significantly suffer as a result of funds being siphoned off, resulting in severe delay, and sometimes even a failure to complete projects.
With a right to information law in place, governments would be obliged to share information on such projects with the public who can then monitor their development. In fact, the right to information would give the public a voice in determining what local projects should take place in the first place and how these can be designed to more effectively improve their lives.
In sum, if governments in the Caribbean are serious about cracking down on corruption and securing the long term democratic development and economic prosperity for their citizens, now is the time for them to seize the initiative and sign up to the convention and prioritise the drawing up and implementation of an effective right to information law.