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For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith has wel­comed yes­ter­day’s High Court rul­ing, which found that for­mer Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT) CEO and board mem­bers breached their fidu­cia­ry du­ties in ap­prov­ing a $34 mil­lion con­tract for the con­tro­ver­sial and now-de­funct Life Sport pro­gramme.

The court ruled that the for­mer board mem­bers could not be treat­ed as mere “rub­ber stamps” and had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ex­er­cise over­sight and due dili­gence. The rul­ing has reignit­ed pub­lic calls for re­form in the ap­point­ment of State board mem­bers and greater ac­count­abil­i­ty in pub­lic of­fice.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Grif­fith said the rul­ing vin­di­cates his de­ci­sion, while in of­fice, to raise the alarm about fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the pro­gramme, even at the risk of po­lit­i­cal fall­out.