As Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares for the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the new par­lia­men­tary term on May 23, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pri­or­i­tize the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act and the ad­vance­ment of com­pre­hen­sive cam­paign fi­nance re­form.

In a state­ment is­sued ahead of the new ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, TT­TI em­pha­sized that ef­fec­tive whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion is a cor­ner­stone of good gov­er­nance. While the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act has been passed and as­sent­ed to, it re­mains un­pro­claimed. The In­sti­tute called for its full im­ple­men­ta­tion, stat­ing that it would em­pow­er in­di­vid­u­als in both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to re­port mis­con­duct with­out fear of re­tal­i­a­tion—strength­en­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty and safe­guard­ing pub­lic funds.

TT­TI al­so re­it­er­at­ed its long­stand­ing call for re­form in the area of po­lit­i­cal fi­nanc­ing. Point­ing to con­cerns raised dur­ing the last Gen­er­al Elec­tion by var­i­ous stake­hold­ers and the CARI­COM Ob­serv­er Group, the In­sti­tute stressed that cam­paign fi­nance re­form is es­sen­tial to en­sure that elect­ed of­fi­cials re­main ac­count­able to the pub­lic rather than to fi­nan­cial back­ers. Such re­forms, it ar­gued, would help curb cor­rup­tion, re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence, and cre­ate space for broad­er par­tic­i­pa­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly from women, youth, and un­der­rep­re­sent­ed groups.