5th Annual Siwatibau Memorial Lecture

Transparency International Fiji in partnership with University of the South Pacific is organizing its 5th Annual Siwatibau Memorial Lecture on February 4th, 2008 at the Lower Marine Campus, USP, Suva. The theme of this lecture is Transparency & Accountability in Political Party Financing.

The guest speaker will be Ms. Huguette Labelle, the chairperson of Transparency International.

Corruption in political finance erodes trust in the institutions of democracy, when scandal after scandal reveal politicians sharing the spoils of power with their financial backers. Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer 2004 found that in 36 out of 62 countries polled, political parties were considered to be the most corrupt institution, followed by parliaments. Faced with evidence that voters do care about the ways in which electoral politics is financed, governments around the world have taken steps to regulate political party and campaign financing.

[Source:http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2005/policy_briefs]

Transparency International Fiji and University of the South Pacific would like to draw public attention on this topic and to encourage public discourse in both the local and regional context, especially in context of Fiji with our forthcoming general election set for early 2009.

H P Singh
Chairman
Transparency International-Fiji.