The three sides of corruption | Afra Raymond | TEDxPortofSpain

Trinidad and Tobago amassed great wealth in the 1970s thanks to oil. But in 1982, a shocking fact was revealed — that 2 out of every 3 dollars earmarked for development had been wasted or stolen. This has haunted Afra Raymond for 30 years. Shining a flashlight on a continued history of government corruption, Raymond gives us a reframing of financial crime.

Mr. Raymond is a Chartered Surveyor and Managing Director of Raymond & Pierre Limited. He holds a B.Sc. in Land Administration and is also a Professional Member of the RICS with specializations in Valuation, Planning & Development and Property Finance. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in January 2011.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Host: We're honored to have
Afra Raymond with us.

Afra Raymond: Thank you.

(Applause)

Okay, this morning I'm speaking

on the question of corruption.

And corruption is defined

as the abuse of a position of trust

for the benefit of yourself

or in the case of our context,

your friends, your family
or your financiers.

Okay? Friends, family and financiers.
(Applause)

But we need to understand
what we understand about corruption.

We understand that we have
been miseducated about it,

and we have to admit that.

We have the courage to admit that

to start changing how we deal with it.

The first thing is that the big myth,

number one,
is that in fact it's not really a crime.

When we get together
with friends and family

and we discuss crime in our country,

crime in Belmont, crime in Diego,
or crime in Marabella,

nobody's speaking about corruption.

That's the honest truth.

When the Commissioner of Police
comes on TV to talk about crime,

he isn't speaking about corruption.

And we know for sure,

when the Minister of National Security
is speaking about crime,

he's not talking about corruption either.
(Laughter)

The point I'm making
is that it is a crime.

It's an economic crime we're involving
the looting of taxpayer's money.

Public and private
corruption is a reality.

As somebody who comes
from the private sector,

I can tell you there's a massive
amount of corruption

in the private sector that has
nothing to do with government.

The same bribes and backhanders and things

that take place under the table,
it all takes place in the private sector.

Today, I'm focusing on public
sector corruption,

which the private sector
also participates in.

The second important myth to understand -

because we have to destroy these myths,

dismantle them and destroy them
and ridicule them -

the second important myth to understand

is the one that says

that in fact corruption
is only a small problem.

If it is a problem,
it's only a small problem,

that in fact it's only a little
10 or 15 percent.

It's been going on forever,
it probably will continue forever,

and there's no point passing any laws,

because there's little we can do about it.

And I want to demonstrate that that too,

is a dangerous myth, very dangerous.

It's a piece of public mischief.

And I want to speak a little bit,

take us back about 30 years.

We're coming out today
from Trinidad and Tobago,

a resource-rich,
small Caribbean country,

and in the early 1970s we had a massive
increase in the country's wealth,

and that increase was caused
by the increase in world oil prices.

We call them petrodollars.
The treasury was bursting with money.

And it's ironic, because

we're standing today in the Central Bank.

You see, history's rich in irony.

We're standing today in the Central bank,

and the Central bank
is responsible for a lot of the things

I'm going to be speaking about.
Okay?

We're talking about irresponsibility
in public office.

We're speaking about the fact
that across the terrace,

the next tower is the Ministry of Finance,

and there's a lot of connection
with us today.

So we're speaking
within your temple today. OK?

(Applause)

The first thing I want to talk about

is that when all of this money flowed
into our country about 40 years ago,

we embarked, the government
of the day embarked

on a series of government-
to-government arrangements

to have rapidly develop the country.

And some of the largest
projects in the country

were being constructed through
government-to-government arrangements

with some of the leading
countries in the world,

the United States and Britain and France
and so on and so on.

As I said, even this building
we're standing in -

that's one of the ironies -

this building was part of that series
of complexes,

what they called the Twin Towers.

It became so outrageous,
the whole situation,

that in fact a commission of inquiry
was appointed,

and it reported in 1982,
30 years ago it reported -

the Ballah Report -
30 years ago, and immediately

the government-to-government
arrangements were stopped.

Then the Prime Minister went to Parliament

to give a budget speech, and he said
some things that I'll never forget.

They went right in here.
I was a young man at the time.

It went right into my heart.

And he said that, in fact -
let me see if this thing works.

Are we getting a, yeah? -

That's what he told us.

He told us that, in fact,

two out of every three dollars
of our petrodollars

that we spent, the taxpayer's money,
was wasted or stolen.

So the 10 or 15 percent is pure mischief.

As we say, it's a nancy-story. Forget it.

That's for little children.

We are big people,

and we're trying to deal
with what's happening in our society.

Okay? This is the size of the problem.

Okay? Two thirds of the money
stolen or wasted.

That was 30 years ago. 1982 was Ballah.

So what has changed?

I don't like to bring up
embarrassing secrets

to an international audience,
but I have to.

Four months ago, we suffered
a constitutional outrage in this country.

We call it the Section 34 fiasco,
the Section 34 fiasco.

A suspicious piece of law,
and I am going to say it like it is,

a suspicious piece of law

was passed at a suspicious time

to free some suspects.
(Laughter)

And it was called, those people are called

the Piarco Airport accused.

I am going to have my own lexicon
speaking here today.

They are the Piarco Airport accused.

It was a constitutional outrage
of the first order,

and I have labeled it
the Plot to Pervert Parliament.

Our highest institution
in our country was perverted.

We are dealing with pervert here

of an economic and financial nature.

Do you get how serious this problem is?

There was massive protest.

A lot of us in this room

took part in the protest
in different forms.

Most importantly,
the American embassy complained,

so Parliament was swiftly reconvened,

and the law was reversed, it was repealed.

That's the world lawyers use.
It was repealed.

But the point is

that Parliament was outwitted
in the whole course of events,

because what really happen is that,

because of the suspicious
passage of that law.

The law was actually passed into effect

on the weekend we celebrated
our 50th anniversary of independence,

our jubilee of independence.

So that is the kind of outrage
of the thing.

It was a kind of a nasty way
to get maturation. But we got it.

Because we all understood it,

and for the first time
that I could remember,

there were mass protests
against this corruption.

And that gave me a lot of hope. Okay?

Those of us who are -
sometimes you feel like

you're little bit on your own doing
some of this work.

That passage of the law
and the repeal of the law

fortified the case
of the Piarco Airport accused.

So it was one of those really superior

double bluff kind of things
that took place.

But what were they accused of?

What was it that they were accused of?

I am being a bit mysterious
for those of you out there.

What were they accuse of?

We were trying to build,

or reconstruct largely, an airport
that had grown outdated.

The entire project cost
about 1.6 billion dollars,

Trinidad and Tobago dollars,

and in fact, we had a lot of bid-rigging

and suspicious activity,
corrupted activity took place.

And to get an idea
of what it consisted of,

and to put it in context
in relationship to this whole

second myth about it being no big thing.

We can look at this second slide here.

And what we have here -
I am not saying so,

this is the Director of Public
Prosecutions in a written statement.

He said so.

And he's telling us that
for the $1.6 billion cost of the project,

one billion dollars has been traced

to offshore bank accounts.

One billion dollars
of our taxpayer's money

has been located in offshore
bank accounts.

Being the kind of suspicious person I am,

I'm outraged at that,
and I'm going to pause here -

I'm going to pause now and again
and bring in different things.

I'm going to pause here and bring in
something I saw in November

last year at Wall Street.
I was at Zuccotti Park.

It was autumn. It was cool.
It was damp. It was getting dark.

And I was walking around
with the protesters

looking at the One Wall Street,

occupy Wall Street movement
walking around.

There was a lady with a sign,
a very simple sign,

a kind of battered-looking blond lady,

and the sign was made out of
Bristol board, as we say in these parts,

and it was made with a marker.

And what it said on that sign
hit me right in the center.

It said, "If you're not outraged,
you haven't been paying attention."

If you're not outraged by all of this,
you haven't been paying attention.

So listen up, because we're getting
into even deeper waters.

My brain started thinking.

Well, what if -

because I'm suspicious like that,

I read a lot of spy novels and stuff -

What if -
(Laughter)

but to make it in these wrongs,

you have read a lot of spy novels

and follows some of that stuff, right?
(Laughter)

But, what if

this wasn't the first time?

What if this is just the first time

that the so-and-sos had been caught?

What if it had happened before?
How would I find out?

Now, the previous two examples I gave

were to do with construction sector
corruption, okay?

And I have the privilege
at this time to lead

the Joint Consultative Council,
which is a not-for-profit.

We're at jcc.org.tt,
and we have the leaders

in the struggle to produce a new
public procurement system

about how public money is transacted.

So those of you interested in finding
out more about it,

or joining us or signing up on any
of our petitions, please get involved.

But I'm going to segue to another
thing that relates,

because one of my private companies
I've been conducting

for over three and half years

is for transparency and accountability

around the bailout of CL Financial.

CL Financial is the Caribbean's largest
ever conglomerate, okay?

And without getting
into all of the details,

it is said to have collapsed -
I'm using my words very carefully.

It's said to have collapsed
in January of '09,

which is just coming up to nearly
four years.

In an unprecedented fit of generosity -

and you have to be very suspicious
about these people -

in an unprecedented - and I'm using
that word carefully -

unprecedented fit of generosity,
the government of the day

signed, made a written commitment,
to repay all of the creditors.

And I can tell you without fear
of contradiction

that hasn't happened anywhere
else on the planet.

Let's understand,
because we lack context.

People are telling us
it's just like Wall Street.

It's not just like Wall Street.

Trinidad and Tobago is like a place
with different laws of physics

or biology or something.

It's not just like anywhere.
(Laughter) (Applause)

It's not just like anywhere.

Here is here,
and out there is out there.

Okay? I'm serious now.

Listen. They've had bailouts
on Wall Street.

They've had bailouts in London.

They've had bailouts in Europe.

In Africa, they've had bailouts.

In Nigeria, six of the major
commercial banks collapsed

at the same time as ours, eh?

It's interesting to parallel
how the Nigerian experience has -

how they've treated it,

and they've treated it
very well compared to us.

Nowhere on the planet

have all the creditors been bailed out

in excess of what their statutory
entitlements were.

Only here. So what was the reason
for the generosity?

Is our government that generous?
And maybe they are.

Let's look at it. Let's look into it.

So I started digging and writing
and so and so on.

And that work can be found,
my personal work

can be found at Afra Raymond.com,
which is my name.

It's a not for profit blog that I run.

Not as popular as some
of the other people, but there you go.

(Laughter)

But the point is that the bitter
experience of Section 34,

that plot to pervert Parliament,
that bitter experience

that took place in August,

when we were supposed to be
celebrating our independence,

going into September,
forced me to check myself

and recalculate my bearings,

and to go back into some of the work,
some of the stuff I'd written

and some of the exchanges
I'd had with the officials

to see what was really what.

As we say in Trinidad and Tobago,
who is who and what is what?

Okay? We want to try to recalculate.

And I made a Freedom of Information
application

in May this year
to the Ministry of Finance.

The Ministry of Finance
is the next tower over.

This is the other context.

The Ministry of Finance, we are told,

is subject to the provisions
of the Freedom of Information Act.

I'm going to take you through
a worked example

of whether that's really so.

The Central bank in which we stand
this morning is immune

from the provisions of the Freedom
of Information Act.

So in fact, you can't ask them anything,

and they don't have to answer anything.

That is the law since 1999.

So I plunged into this struggle,
and I asked four questions.

And I'll relate the questions to you
in the short form with the reply,

so you could understand,
as I said, where we are.

Here is not like anywhere else.

Questions number one.

I asked to see the accounts
of CL Financial,

and if you can't show me the accounts

the Minister of Finance
is making statements,

passing new laws and giving
speeches and so on.

What are the figures he's relying on?

It's like that joke;
I want whatever he's drinking.

And they wrote back and said to me,

well what do you really mean?

So they hit my question with a question.

Second point: I want to see

who are the creditors of the group
who have been repaid?

Let me pause here to point out to you all

that 24 billion dollars of our money
has been spent on this.

That is about three and a half billion
U.S. dollars

coming out of a small -

we used to be resource rich
Caribbean country. Okay?

And I asked the question.

Who was getting
that three and a half billion dollars?

And I want pause again
to bring up context,

because context helps us to get
clarity understanding this thing.

There's a particular individual
who is in the government now.

The name of the person doesn't matter.

And that person made a career

out of using the Freedom
of Information Act

to advance his political cause.

Okay? His name isn't important.
(Laughter)

I wouldn't dignify it. I'm on a point.

The point is, that person made
a career out of using

the Freedom of information
Act to advance his cause.

And the most famous case

was what we came to call
the Secret Scholarship Scandal,

where in fact there was about 60 million
dollars in government money

that had been dispersed
in a series of scholarships,

and the scholarships hadn't been
advertised, and so and so on.

And he was able to get the court,
using that act of Parliament,

Freedom of information Act,

to release the information,

and I thought that was excellent.

Fantastic.

But you see, the question is this.

If it's right and proper for us to use
the Freedom Of Information Act

and to use the court

to force a disclosure about
60 million dollars in public money,

it must be right and proper

for us to force a disclosure
about 24 billion dollars.

You see? But the Ministry of Finance,

the Permanent Secretary
of the Ministry of Finance,

wrote me and said to me,
that information is exempt too.

You see? This is what we're dealing with.
Okay?

The third thing I will tell you

is that I also asked

for the directors of CL financial

whether in fact they were making filings
under our Integrity in Public Life Act.

We have an Integrity in public Life Act

as part of our framework supposed
to safeguard the nation's interest.

And public officials are supposed to file

to say what it is they have in terms
of assets and liabilities.

And of course I've since discovered
that they're not filing,

and in fact the Ministry of Finance
has not even asked them to file.

So here we have it.

We have a situation where

the basic safeguards of integrity
and accountability

and transparency have all been discarded.

I've asked the question in the legal
and required fashion.

It's been ignored.

The sort of thing that motivated us
abound Section 34,

we need to continue to work on that.

We can't forget it.

I have defined this as the largest
expenditure in the country's history.

It's also the single largest example

of public corruption according
to this equation.

And this is my reality check.

Where you have an expenditure
of public money

and it is without accountability

and it's without transparency,

it will always be equal to corruption,

whether you're in Russian
or Nigeria or Alaska,

it will always be equal to corruption,

and that is what we are dealing with here.

I'm going to continue the work

to press on, to get some resolution

of those matters
at the Ministry of Finance.

If it is I have to go to court personally,
I will do that.

We will continue to press on.

We will continue to work within JCC.

But I want to step back
from the Trinidad and Tobago context

and bring something new to the table

in terms of an international example.

We had the journalist
[Heather] Brooke speaking

about her battle against
government corruption,

and she introduced me
to this website, Alaveteli.com.

And Alaveteli.com is a way for us
to have an open database

for Freedom and Information applications,

and speak with each other.

I could see what you're applying for.

You could see what I applied for
and what replies I got.

We can work on it together.

We need to build a collective database

and a collective understanding
of where we are, to go to the next point.

We need to increase the consciousness.

The final thing I want to say
is in relation to this one,

which is a lovely website from India

called IPaidABribe.com.

The have international branches,

and it's important for us
to tune into this one.

IPaidABribe.com is really important,

a good one to log on to and to see.

I'm going to pause there.
I'm going to ask you for your courage.

Discard the first myth; it is a crime.

Discard the second myth;
it is a big thing.

It's a huge problem.
It's an economic crime.

And let us continue working together

to betterment in this situation.

Stability and sustainability
in our society.

Thank you.
(Applause)