UK Failing Turks And Caicos

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

08 April 2010

Rapporteur for a report released on March 31, the UK's Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Mike Gapes has warned that the UK government is not doing enough in its investigation of alleged systemic corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI).

The Foreign Affairs Committee first voiced its concerns of systemic corruption in the British Overseas Territory in 2008. The British government acted on these concerns on August 14, 2009, suspending the island’s constitution and reintroducing direct British rule in the islands.

Reporting back on the Committee’s investigation on progress made in the Turks and Caicos Islands since, Gapes stated:

"Despite the progress that has been made since [the Committee] first became aware of the allegations of corruption, the future of the TCI is still far from secure.”

“It is essential that the issues identified by us in our 2008 report and by the Commission of Inquiry are resolved to secure the well-being of the territory. It has already been twelve months since the Commission's interim report and still no decisive action has been taken against those suspected of corruption.”

Warning that the government’s deadline for returning direct rule, at July 2011, would be inappropriate, Gapes added:

“The overriding aim of the current British administration of the TCI must be to restore democratic self-government as soon as the purging of the corrupt and dysfunctional political system has been completed and entrenched. There are solid reasons for regarding the government's preferred July 2011 date for the end of direct rule as unrealistic. If elections proceed on this timetable, there is a real danger that politicians against whom serious allegations of corruption are pending could liquidate their assets and put funds beyond the reach of the authorities or seek to use bribery and intimidation to engineer a return to office.”

“The government should reassure the people of the TCI that a new constitution will not be put in place, nor elections held, until there is absolute confidence that the necessary reforms have been fully embedded."

Continuing, Gapes stated:

"We are very concerned that the government has failed to put in place adequate funding arrangements for the work of the TCI Special Investigation and Prosecution Team (SIPT), which must rely on funds from the already financially overstretched TCI government to carry out its work - funds which are desperately needed for healthcare and policing.”

He concluded:

“The UK government was culpable in allowing a culture of systemic corruption to develop in the TCI unchecked, and now that it is officially intervening it has a responsibility to follow through with the required financial commitment. It is unreasonable to expect the people of the TCI to fund investigations and prosecutions relating to corruption for which they were not responsible. The UK government must fully fund the SIPT or risk undermining its own credibility in its use of reserved powers in not just the TCI but in the other Overseas Territories."

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