Every few years, the conversation about corruption in Trinidad and Tobago resets itself along party lines. PNM supporters point to the Piarco Airport scandal, the LifeSport fraud, the Ramlogan-West kickback scheme. UNC supporters point to Calder Hart, Petrotrin, the Paria diving disaster. Both sides are correct. Both sides are also missing the point.
The real scandal is not that either party is corrupt. It is that the institution specifically designed to hold public officials accountable - the Integrity Commission - has produced zero prosecutions in 37 years of existence. The watchdog has no teeth, no staff, and no track record. In a country where both major parties have overseen billions in questionable expenditure, the mechanism for accountability is decorative.
This is the ledger. Both columns.
The UNC Column: Criminal Charges and Discontinued Prosecutions
The UNC's governance record is defined by criminal matters - charges laid, indictments filed, and prosecutions that somehow never reach a verdict.
The Piarco International Airport expansion is the anchor. The project cost TT$1.6 billion. Bid-rigging allegations produced charges that have consumed more than 20 years of court time and over $200 million in legal costs. Domestically, the result has been zero convictions. A US civil judgment returned US$131.3 million, but the Trinidad and Tobago courts have produced nothing. The prosecution has effectively become a litigation industry of its own - lawyers on both sides billing the state while defendants age out of the system.
When the criminal cases appeared to be moving forward, the UNC-led government in 2012 passed Section 34 of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act, a provision that would have shielded Piarco defendants by imposing time limits on prosecutions. The public outcry forced a repeal within days. The attempt to legislate an escape hatch for defendants in an active corruption case remains a significant governance failure in the country's modern history.
Former Attorney General Anand Ramlogan and attorney Gerald Ramdeen faced charges in a kickback scheme involving over TT$1 billion in legal fees paid from the public purse, with an alleged 10% returning to the principals. Those charges were discontinued in October 2022. Both men are now government-adjacent. Ramlogan's firm has been retained by the AG's office. Ramdeen was appointed Chairman of the National Gas Company in July 2025. The charges disappeared, and the accused were rewarded with proximity to power.
Jack Warner, the former FIFA vice-president and UNC minister, faced 47 counts related to US$5 million in bribes. His extradition to the United States was permanently stayed in September 2025. Warner also facilitated Cambridge Analytica's "Do So!" campaign in Trinidad and Tobago - a foreign data operation deployed in a domestic election. He remains uncharged locally.
The LifeSport programme consumed $349.5 million in public funds in what auditors described as fraud. Minister Anil Roberts resigned. He was never charged. He now serves as Minister in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. David Lee, another UNC-aligned figure, was charged with fraud involving a Mercedes-Benz transaction, re-arrested in October 2025 while serving as Housing Minister, and remains in cabinet. The signal to the public is unmistakable: criminal charges do not disqualify anyone from government service.
Former Minister Roodal Moonilal faces a $275 million civil cartel claim related to the EMBD, with trial scheduled for June 2026. The allegation is that he approved a contract to co-defendant TN Ramnauth and Associates while aware of the conflict. And then there is the OAS highway contract. Clause 15.2(e) - which protected the state's interests - was removed 72 hours before the 2015 general election. That removal ultimately cost Trinidad and Tobago $852.9 million in international arbitration.
The PNM Column: Institutional Decay and Negligence
The PNM's record looks different but is not better. Where the UNC column features criminal charges, the PNM column features cost overruns measured in billions, institutional collapse, and a pattern of negligence that has cost lives.
UDECOTT under Calder Hart represents the template. Over $2 billion in cost overruns across major government construction projects, nepotistic contracting practices documented by a commission of enquiry, and - the familiar ending - no criminal charges. Hart left the country. The state spent years investigating. The investigation produced reports. The reports produced nothing.
Petrotrin is a case study in managed decline. Three flagship projects ran overruns of 314%, 174%, and 265% respectively, totalling $14.25 billion in combined costs. Rather than reform the company, the Keith Rowley government shuttered Petrotrin in November 2018, displacing over 5,000 workers. The Guaracara refinery has sat idle for nearly eight years. Meanwhile, the Nutrien shutdown stripped the country of its largest remaining fertiliser operation. Whether the closure was necessary or punitive depends on who you ask, but the cost overruns that preceded it are not disputed.
The Paria diving disaster of February 2022 killed four men - Kazim Ali Jr., Yusuf Henry, Rishi Nagassar, and Fyzal Kurban. An independent report described the circumstances as "gross negligence." The men were pulled into a pipeline during maintenance work. Corporate manslaughter charges have not been filed. The families have received no accountability from the state entity that employed the contractor. Paria is a state-owned company. The state has not held its own subsidiary to account for four deaths.
Former PNM Minister Marlene McDonald was fired by Prime Minister Rowley three times over separate controversies. She faced criminal charges. Those charges were dropped. She died in December 2023. Her trajectory illustrates a pattern: controversy, removal, reinstatement, more controversy, charges, dropped charges. The cycle completes without consequence.
The Bipartisan Ledger
Some failures belong to both parties equally.
The CL Financial collapse cost Trinbagonians between TT$28 billion and $32 billion across two decades and four administrations. The PNM under Patrick Manning initiated the 2009 bailout. The UNC continued it from 2010 to 2015. The PNM under Rowley managed the aftermath and sat on the Colman Commission report for nearly a decade. The UNC government under Persad-Bissessar tabled the report in 2026 and then ended the civil cases. Lawrence Duprey died at 89 without facing a courtroom. Zero criminal charges in 17 years. Every administration that touched the file found a reason to delay.
State board patronage is bipartisan by design. Approximately 300 to 400 board positions change hands with every election. Both parties reward loyalists with board seats at statutory authorities, state enterprises, and regulatory bodies. The practice ensures that the people tasked with overseeing public institutions owe their positions to the party in power. Oversight becomes performance.
The Institution That Does Nothing
The Integrity Commission was established in 1987 to investigate allegations of corruption against public officials. It has produced zero prosecutions in 37 years. Its staff has been cut from 63 to 26. Over 3,000 declarations from public officials remain outstanding. The body lacks prosecutorial power, adequate funding, and apparently the institutional will to pursue its mandate.
This is where the real question sits. Trinbagonians spend election cycles arguing about which party is more corrupt. The evidence says both parties have overseen failures measured in billions. The difference is in the flavour - the UNC's failures tend to involve criminal charges that get discontinued, while the PNM's tend to involve institutional decay that nobody charges at all. The outcome is identical: no accountability.
The Promise Tracker documents what both parties committed to doing. The record above documents what they actually did. When the institution designed to hold officials accountable has not produced a single prosecution since its founding, the question is no longer whether the politicians are the problem. It is whether the accountability infrastructure itself is the problem - and whether that suits everyone in power just fine.
The DPP lacks an independent budget. The Auditor General publishes reports that nobody reads. The Integrity Commission has fewer staff than a mid-sized law firm. The pattern is not partisan. It is structural. And structural failures do not fix themselves when the government changes. They persist because they serve the interests of whoever happens to be in office.
Trinbagonians deserve an accountability framework that functions regardless of who wins the election. What they have instead is an Integrity Commission with zero prosecutions, a DPP without budgetary independence, and two political parties that have each demonstrated, repeatedly, that they will not hold themselves to account. The ledger is open. Both columns are damning. And the institution that was supposed to audit the ledger has been gutted to the point of irrelevance.
Sources
- Trinidad Express: "Piarco Airport legal costs exceed $200M" (ongoing coverage)
- Newsday: "Section 34 - a timeline" (2012)
- Trinidad Guardian: "Ramlogan, Ramdeen charges discontinued" (October 2022)
- Newsday: "Freedom Law Chambers retained by AG's office" (2025)
- Newsday: "Ramdeen appointed NGC Chairman" (July 2025)
- US Department of Justice: Indictment of Jack Warner, 47 counts (2015)
- Trinidad Express: "Warner extradition permanently stayed" (September 2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "LifeSport audit findings - $349.5M" (2014)
- Newsday: "David Lee re-arrested while serving as Housing Minister" (October 2025)
- Trinidad Express: "OAS highway arbitration - $852.9M award" (2020)
- Newsday: "Moonilal EMBD civil cartel - $275M claim" (ongoing)
- Commission of Enquiry into the Construction Sector: UDECOTT findings (2010)
- Trinidad Express: "Petrotrin flagship project overruns - $14.25B combined" (2018)
- Newsday: "Paria diving disaster independent report - gross negligence" (2023)
- Trinidad Express: "Marlene McDonald - timeline of charges and dismissals" (2023)
- Newsday: "AG ditches civil suit on CL Financial crash" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "AG: T&T spent up to $32B on CL Financial collapse" (January 2026)
- Integrity Commission of Trinidad and Tobago: Annual Reports (1987-2025)
- Trinidad Express: "Integrity Commission staffing crisis - 63 to 26" (2025)
- Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago: Hansard records on Integrity Commission funding
- US District Court: Civil judgment - Piarco Airport bid-rigging, US$131.3M
- Cambridge Analytica Files: "Do So!" campaign documentation (2018)