The FCO has made an additional £4.5m (c.$7.2m)contribution to the TCI Government to help meet the costs of the SIPT investigation and Civil Recovery programme for financial year 2011/12, it was announced by Minister Henry Bellingham today, Thu, 26 April 2012.
This is in addition to £6.6m of UK support for TCIG for the same purpose in financial year 2010/11. The costs of the SIPT to date have been 2010/11 $6,856,724 and 2011/12 $7,621,389.
The full PQ and Answer are attached below:
Q: What spending has been incurred on the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) Special Investigation and Prosecution Team by the (a) Government and (b) TCI government.
A: In 2009, Sir Robin Auld’s Commission of Inquiry report concluded that there was a high probability of systemic corruption in the former Turks and Caicos Islands Government.
I am pleased to be able to inform the House that the special investigation into issues raised by this report is making good progress and 13 people have been charged with corruption, conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.
In financial year 2010-11 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office made a discretionary grant of £6.6m to reimburse the Turks and Caicos Islands Government for some of the exceptional costs of the criminal investigation, including the work of the Special Investigation and Prosecution Team, and related civil recovery and police work.
In financial year 2011-12 the Turks and Caicos Islands Government report that expenditure for the Special Investigation and Prosecution team was US$7.6m. This represents over 4% of expenditure and a significant funding challenge for the Turks and Caicos Islands Government. The Turks and Caicos Islands Government has introduced a range of new taxes and cut overall expenditure significantly in order to address its structural deficit and put it on course for a sustainable fiscal surplus in financial year 2012-13.
In view of the exceptional situation, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon Friend Member for Richmond (Yorks (Mr Hague) agreed to make a further grant of £3.8m in financial year 2011/12 to reimburse the Turks and Caicos Islands Government for a proportion of the costs associated with the continuing criminal investigation and associated prosecutions. The Foreign Secretary also approved an additional £745,000 contribution to the cost of setting up a suitable courtroom for the trials which will be held as a result of the investigation.
In addition to these grants, the British Government spent approximately £86,000 on costs in the UK relating to the Special Investigation and Prosecution Team in financial year 2011-12.
His Excellency Governor Ric Todd said: “I stated in December 2011 that we would approach our colleagues in the UK to determine if further financial support for this investigation would be available to us here in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I am extremely pleased, therefore, that we were able to make a successful case.”
The Minister was responding to a Parliamentary Question received by Conservative Andrew Rosindell MP, representative for Romford. He is the Chair of the TCI All-Party Parliamentary Group, Chair of the Overseas Territories All-Party Parliamentary Group and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Further details on Mr Rosindell’s interests can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/andrew-rosindell/1447.
Question and answer
Why should UK fund an investigation in an Overseas Territory?
Normally it is for Overseas Territory governments to fund criminal investigations within their jurisdiction. However, the cost of the SIPT investigation in FY 2011-12 was US$7.6m. This represents over 4% of TCI government annual expenditure and a significant funding challenge for them.
In view of this exceptional situation, the UK Government decided to reimburse the TCI government for a proportion of the costs associated with the continuing criminal investigation and associated prosecutions.
Why has the cost of the investigation been so high?
This remains a difficult and complex investigation working across international borders, and dealing with law enforcement and judicial authorities in a number of countries. The SIPT has had offices in both the UK and the TCI, although the UK office has now closed. There has been a significant travel element moving and rotating individual officers and investigative teams between the UK and TCI.
Ultimately, the costs of the SIPT and the separate Civil Recovery programme need to be looked at against the recoveries of money and land by the SIPT and the Civil Recovery Team. The SIPT has agreed a civil recovery order with one individual who has paid the sum of US$1.25m. The Civil Recovery team has made in excess of 40 separate recoveries of money and/or land. The monetary element is US$12m including payments already made, judgements obtained and still to be collected and agreements to pay. More than 900 acres of land have also been returned to the Crown with a value of tens of millions of dollars.
What is the cost so far?
The approximate expenditure by the UK and TCI Governments is as follows:
|
|
UK Government (US$m) |
TCI Government (US$m) |
|
2009-10 |
1.1 |
|
|
2010-11 |
0.3 + 10.6 grant* |
6.9 |
|
2011-12 |
0.2 + 6.1 and 1.1 grants** |
7.6 |
* Grant covered some of the costs of the SIPT, civil recovery work and the RTCIPF
** Grants covered proportion of criminal investigation and prosecutions, together with a contribution towards costs of setting up a courtroom
How long will the investigation and prosecutions take?
To date, 13 people have been charged with corruption, conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Sufficiency (preliminary) hearings have started in the High Court in TCI and in ten of the cases the judge has ruled that there is a case to answer. Further hearings for the remaining three cases will take place in May. Whilst the size of the investigation team has been considerably reduced, the investigation is ongoing. The focus will now turn to the prosecution of the cases that are passed to the Supreme Court for trial.
Why not leave the investigation to the TCI police force rather than go to the expense of bringing in a team from the UK?
The RTCIPF is an experienced and dedicated force. This would be an exceptionally difficult and complex investigation for any police force. It is even more difficult for a small jurisdiction such as TCI, where the RTCIPF still has carry out its day to day policing of the Territory.
If this was an investigation in the UK, it would be dealt with by the Serious Fraud Office, because it would need to have a team of officers with specialist fraud squad and major investigation experience. The investigation team consisting of former police officers from the UK provide that experience.
It is important that the investigation is completely independent and that it is seen to be so. The TCI is a very small jurisdiction and an investigation into prominent public figures would raise exactly the same concerns anywhere in the world. In a similar situation in the UK, an outside police force would be brought in to investigate and there is plenty of precedent for this.
The investigation team were sworn in as Special Constables under the Royal TCI Police Ordinance.
The elections should be delayed until all those being investigated have been tried?
The Joint FCO/DFID Written Ministerial Statement of 9 December 2010 set out the milestones that Ministers judged would need to be met before elections could take place in TCI. They said that they wanted to see “Significant progress with the civil and criminal processes recommended by the Commission of Inquiry, and implementation of measures to enable these to continue unimpeded”.
It would not be right to delay restoration of democracy longer than necessary.
