PIRG ( Public Interest Research Group ) is a non-profit consumer advocacy group educating the public on banking mal-practices and abuse, seeking to establish banking reform and uphold other basic consumer rights and protection which would be beneficial to the consumer, and inevitably, the country's economic landscape. While PIRG is committed to focusing on it's core objective of Banking Reform, it is non-the-less desirous of addressing other serious consumer issues like insurance malpractice, corporate abuses, Police Brutality, responsibility of Customer Service, the elimination of abusive fly-by- night dishonest debt collectors and agencies, reform of the legal practices act, and the pre-qualification of all Real Estate Agents before they unleash themselves on the public.

Although PIRG is an NGO and as such can only seek to alter change in the consumer's best interest, it can, and must, non-the-less, strengthen public interest and its ability to influence public policy.

PIRG Trinidad remains independent, albeit being crafted after the successful United State PIRG'S , which in-parallel, operate in almost every US State, addressing particular issues affecting their region, yet having the umbrella strategies and support of the Massachusetts, Boston based Head Quarters.

WHAT CATAPULTED THE FORMATION OF PIRG?

For many years before the formation of PIRG , a plethora of “letters to the editors” on banking mal-practices and excessive fees regularly appeared in all three dailies, falling on deaf if not uncaring ears, with no one addressing the relevant issues affecting the lifestyles of the masses and deserving of swift and appropriate action, as Trinidad & Tobago remained notoriously lacking in consumer rights and protection.

The commanding heights of Trinidad's banking landscape are still in the hands of the elite few still bearing pockets of colonial mentality in their dominance of the financial sector, and their captains are not reflective of the true blend to which Trinidad is well known, with black of course being the missing color at the banking mosaic. In a small country of a mere 1.3 Million inhabitants, there are only 6 retail banks all with their own so called “indigenous approach” to banking with just about no real competition or creativity, which in itself is of great disadvantage to banking consumers. With deep pockets derived from constant milking of the black masses to fatten the few so-called “white” and the emerging black bourgeois and house Negroes as in colonial days, local bankers are so aloof and arrogant that when poor consumers complained of their usury fees and charges, the then local “White” president of the Bankers Association of Trinidad & Tobago boasted to the press “The banker is more likely to walk them across the street and into the hands of the competitor than to lower their fees”. My God, what wholesale arrogance! He even boasted again when asked by the media, exclaiming “ Trinidad is overbanked”. By forcefully keeping our banks local and indigenous, our government and banking regulators are actually slowing the growth and development of its citizens presently devoid of the overall quality of international banking so patently unlike the parochial paradigm of Trinidad's banks. Local banks have done absolutely nothing to encourage or stimulate businesses, more so those owned by the actual majority which constitutes the minority when it comes to operating business, and Trinidad banks do not see themselves as sales people competing for market. In other words, in Trinidad it's a banker's market and they will do anything to keep it that way.

Being a victim of Trinidad's puerile and malevolent banking system, PIRG's founder TREVOR HOSTEN noted with interest a headline in the Sunday Guardian of August 13 th , 2000, which stated that banks were contemplating charging its customers a “security fee” “to combat” (if not reimburse themselves) for what they claimed was a fraudulent cheque ring ripping off their fraternity. Mere commonsense would question this “cheque ring” as numbering absolutely no more that say 10/20 offenders quite common in banking, albeit, many are aided and abetted by paid internal “fit and proper” if not otherwise infallible bank staff, while banking customers and account holders numbered in excess of 1M. Further, PIRG is now convinced beyond a scintilla of doubt that over 80% of banking fraud in Trinidad & Tobago is committed by bank employees from Teller all the way up to Manager, but kept quiet to avoid a run on the banks by suspicious depositors immediately angrily demanding their money, albeit the banker would only then realize who is really the bank's nucleus.

Adding injury, Trinidad's banking regulators were caught off guard by PIRG's unprecedented public advertising onslaught as they appeared to think their mandate was limited to internally regulate banks so as to avoid a run on them, completely ignoring the gross abuses, insatiable and infectious greed banks perpetuated on their customers. In simple terms, consumer RIGHTS for banking customers was NOT the concern of our banking regulators! PERIOD.

Banks worldwide are very powerful indeed, and our banking regulators consistently appeared oblivious to escalating cries to address unequivocal and questionable banking issues of serious concern to users of these financial products and services, covertly facilitating the public's view that banks had their tacit approval to bilk individual and corporate consumers tens of millions of dollars annually via predatory and abusive fees and charges, while it appeared evident no one powerful or concerned enough was watching the sincere interest of the masses once banker's hands were constantly in the cookie jar of banking, the pockets of the masses. When PIRG sought and got the ear of the Government to accept our proposals for a Banking Ombudsman (now the FSO ), our banking regulators suddenly got off their lofty pedestal and finally realized their charter did in fact make allowance for a special office to protect the consumer from the misfeasance and malfeasance of powerful and often times callous local banks and financial institutions. We got neither support nor encouragement from our equally out of touch banking regulators who instead faulted us for “using too strong language” both in our many unanswered correspondences to them at which we often copied letters sent to banks begging them (FCB in particular) not to advertise and bold people's names in their SALE BY MORTGAGEE advertisements, and in our unprecedented onslaught of hard-hitting advertisements highlighting banking greed, gross arrogance, misfeasance and malfeasance. They basically showed PIRG contemptuous disregard as we sought merely to say enough is enough, do something and protect the masses from the onslaught of the wealthy and powerful banking elite with their unilateral self interest.

Enough was enough, and that August 13 th 2000 Sunday Guardian headline catapulted today what is indisputably a respected proponent of banking reform, earning the recognition of the Ministry of Legal/Consumer affairs, the ISO/COPOLO in Geneva Switzerland, Consumers International, the Bureau of Standards, and the admiration and support of a wide cross section of society who, prior to PIRG , had absolutely no recourse to be even taken seriously by their bank and other financial players in our economic culture, who for years grossly underestimated if not conveniently ignored the pivotal value of the consumer in their now massive success, moving from average AFTER TAX profits of under $100M to over the $1 BILLION per institution for the two dominant players.

Of course, with the introduction of PIRG , their preposterous demand for a “Security fee” instantly died a natural death, never ever to be heard of again.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PIRG AND OTHER ADVOCACY GROUPS?

All over the world, consumers are awaked by banking abuses and predatory pricing practices, demanding their elected officials sit up, take notice, and enact legislation to protect them. In addressing the 1995 anti-usury conference, Pope John Paul described usury fees as “a serious social evil affecting millions worldwide”. Yet banks worldwide extract the greatest of USURY fees from the populace, and much, much more of they can get away with it.

An educated and informed consumer is not only a better citizen, but also good for business and country, as they know their rights while demanding better quality products and services. Empowered, they learn the value of unity and sacrifice to present a firm, if not at times the required forceful approach for the desired change, exercising the power of boycott by forcing firms to do by compulsion what they won't by conscience.

History has shown that if you allow a man to get away with murder, he will continue to do so with greater impunity. Thus, consumer empowerment creates a balance between seller and buyer, both of whom are consumers, albeit for a different product. Governments alone, while they will conveniently acknowledge they cannot single-handedly effectuate all the changes all the time, they are non the loss questionably slow when it comes to recognizing and supporting NGO's necessary to bring about required changes.