A new agency to investigate corruption and counter terrorism is to be set up, the Attorney General announced Tuesday, as he told lawmakers that the Royal Barbados Police Force’s white-collar crime unit lacks the manpower to do its job.
Dale Marshall told the House of Assembly an anti-corruption and anti-terrorism agency was necessary owing to a lack of expertise in that area in the force. He explained there was insufficient personnel in the RBPF’s Financial Crime Investigation Unit. The unit was created to probe public corruption, fraud and terrorism financing.
The new organisation is part of the Anti-Corruption and Anti-Terrorism Agency Bill he introduced to lawmakers.
Marshall said “When we look at what we have we recognize that in order to do some of the careful analysis that is required in order to deal with corruption, very often you need to buy in services and with the structure of our Force, buying in services to conduct investigations is something that doesn’t work within the way our Force is set up and run.
“We know that issues of corruption require an eye to detail and it also requires in many instances the application of skill sets that are not readily available very often in Barbados.
“We believe that in order to be able to be adequately deal with the issue of corruption we need to move beyond the operation of the RBPF and establish a dedicated agency that goes to work every, single day to investigate corruption and terrorism issues.”
The Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister said even though Barbados had been internationally recognized as one of the least corrupt nations in the Caribbean, it had not improved its ranking for quite some time.
He declared: “There is a corruption index and Barbados is on that index and we are probably in the top 10 in the Americas but we’ve made no significant strides in the last decade. In fact, if you ask me, if anything we were striding backwards.
“Part of the reason why we’ve been unable to make any strides on that particular index is because all that we have had is an RBPF struggling to deal with everything that it has to struggle to deal with and with a 1929 piece of legislation. I mean it is a wonder we were anywhere at all.”
He said the agency would work closely with the Revenue Commissioner, Comptroller of Customs, Chief Immigration Officer, Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Chairman of the Integrity Commission, Superintendent of Prisons, Chief of Staff of the Barbados Defence Force and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Marshall maintained that the head of that agency, its Director General, would not be a politically appointed post and would be given a three-year appointment that could be extended.
He said the Director General would be sworn in by the Governor General and could not be fired except in special circumstances.
The Chief Justice, Supreme Court Justices, Director of Public Prosecutions and Auditor General enjoy similar protections in the Constitution of Barbados.
Marshall disclosed that the Director General could only be removed from office for inability to discharge the functions of the office whether arising from infirmity of body or mind, incompetence, misconduct, if they become bankrupt, are convicted of any offence involving dishonesty or moral turpitude or fail without reasonable excuse to carry out any function imposed by the law or breach their contract.
The new agency’s staff would be required to pass a polygraph test and would be periodically tested during their tenure, he said.
An Oversight Committee would be established to monitor the agency and address issues brought to its attention.
The committee would be made up of seven members including a retired Judge of the High Court, a retired police officer not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police, a retired BDF officer not below the rank of Colonel and a Minister of Religion, who would hold office for five years. (randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
