Two for­mer se­nior bank­ing ex­ec­u­tives are de­fend­ing the in­tegri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bank­ing sec­tor, warn­ing that al­le­ga­tions sug­gest­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed through the fi­nan­cial sys­tem could dam­age con­fi­dence in one of the coun­try’s most im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tions.

The com­ments come in the wake of Wednes­day’s par­lia­men­tary de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), where At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie sig­nalled the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to in­ten­si­fy its crack­down on or­gan­ised crime and white-col­lar crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Je­re­mie said au­thor­i­ties would pur­sue in­di­vid­u­als who fa­cil­i­tate crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es re­gard­less of wealth, in­flu­ence, or so­cial stand­ing.