Barbados’s government has failed to implement key anticorruption measures. Civil society groups, business figures, and the attorney general have complained of serious incidences of corruption, but no major officials have faced arrest under the Mottley administration. Potential whistleblowers fear costly defamation suits.
The Integrity in Public Life Bill—which would strengthen protections for whistleblowers, require members of Parliament to declare their personal wealth, and create a new anticorruption investigative unit—was unveiled in June 2018, but is yet to be made law. The 2018 bill was brought to Parliament for debate in December 2019.
Barbados is one of just seven countries in the Americas to have neither signed nor ratified the Inter-American Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters. Barbados is also yet to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), having signed the treaty in 2003, despite promises by Marshall to do so in 2019. However, in January 2018 Barbados ratified the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, having signed it in 2001.
In Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer published in September 2019, perceived corruption was the lowest in the Americas, with 37 percent of respondents believing that corruption had risen in the past year, and 55 percent believing that the Mottley administration is doing a good job in fighting corruption.
