PM Browne Admits Anti-Corruption Efforts Focused Too Much on Politicians, Not Civil Servants
Prime Minister Gaston Browne has admitted that his administration’s anti-corruption efforts have focused too heavily on Cabinet ministers while systemic corruption thrived within the public service.
Speaking on his Browne and Browne Show, Browne said for too long, attention has been placed on monitoring politicians while entrenched civil servants were left unchecked, enabling years of abuse and collusion with private interests.
“What I want to ensure is that this government, this country, is governed better,” Browne said. “The focus was almost exclusively on Cabinet to make sure ministers don’t steal, not recognizing that below, they had our public servants well captured.”
He said evidence now shows that sections of the civil service — particularly the Treasury, Customs, and Public Works — were “captured” by large business operators who used public officers to bypass systems and gain unfair advantages.
“Even the Treasury, they have their own people — their own captured public servants — who they pay to prioritize their payments,” Browne said. “Sometimes a little man can’t get paid for the bread he supplies to the prison, but the big players go every week and collect their checks.”
The Prime Minister said these relationships created a system where “money and favors determine efficiency,” allowing the wealthy to fast-track transactions while ordinary suppliers were left waiting.
He acknowledged that while laws and safeguards existed, they were being circumvented by insiders who exploited weaknesses in oversight. “It’s not that we don’t have systems in place,” he said. “The systems are there, but they are being circumvented.”
Browne said his government has since taken steps to centralize financial control and strengthen checks and balances. All large Treasury payments must now be validated through the Ministry of Finance before approval. Cabinet will also review major disbursements weekly to prevent unauthorized transactions.
He announced additional reforms, including the rotation of staff in key departments to break up long-standing relationships between officials and major suppliers. “We’re going to rotate,” he said. “Some of these people have been in the same positions for 15 or 20 years — that’s not good governance.”
Browne also plans to allocate $1 million in the upcoming budget to hire private citizens as validation officers to perform random spot checks of imported goods and Customs transactions. “We’re going to have more regular, routine spot checks of containers,” he said. “I don’t care who they are — could be Epicurean, First Choice, or any of the big supermarkets.”
Describing the reform drive as a “cleanup from top to bottom,” Browne said it forms part of a broader “national reset” aimed at restoring public trust after the recent vehicle procurement controversy. “This is not about shaming anyone,” he said. “It’s about restoring integrity and rebuilding trust in government.”
