Co-founder of Transparency International - Malaysia, Tunku Abdul-Aziz, was appointed as UN Ethics Advisor 23 February 2006. Mr. Abdul-Aziz will advise on the establishment of a United Nations Ethics Office, including the set-up, operating procedures and staff recruitment.

The Rev. Geo-Sung Kim, secretary general of Transparency International-Korea and member of the TI Board of Directors, was awarded the Moran Medal of the Order of Civil Merit from the Korean government for his contributions to enhance transparency in Korea, specifically his role in inceasing particpation from all sectors of society in the K-PACT.

Transparency International-Kenya, together with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, released a report entitled Living Large: Counting the Cost of Official Extravagence in Kenya in January 2006. This report investigates the purchase of high-end, luxury vehicles by senior government officials in the first year of the NARC administration, naming and shaming government officials and detailing their vehicle expenditures.

The report focused on luxury cars, because they provide an obvious symbol of government waste: they are visible, expensive, unnecessary and serve the needs of a few individuals rather than the greater good. It is based on the premise: "Until all necessities are accessible to all members of our community, no one should live in luxury using public resources".

Living Large shows the "opportunity cost" of corruption, that is the goods and services that could have been purchased with the money that was squandered – resources that might have otherwise helped alleviate poverty. For example, the equivalent of US$ 12 million spent on luxury cars could have:

• Provided anti-retroviral treatment for an entire year for nearly 150,000 people living with HIV/AIDS;
• Provided 25,000 children with eight years of schooling.

To read the report in full, go to TI Kenya´s website: http://www.tikenya.org

The Transparency International Pacific Regional Meeting in Kokopo, Papua New Guinea on 11-12 March 2006, reaffirmed the need to promote good governance to successfully combat corruption, and asked that this to be given the highest priority by Pacific Governments, civil society organisations and citizens. To support the promotion of good governance, participants committed to focus their efforts on two main areas: anti-corruption education and ensuring transparency in upcoming elections in the region.

The participants committed themselves to develop and deliver on-going civic education to give children, young people and the wider community a greater understanding of the way their government systems should operate and their rights and roles in the governance process to combat corruption. Pacific TI national chapters have additionally agreed to concurrently run a regional anti-corruption essay competition for high schools.

With several Pacific countries facing elections in the near future, participants called on governments and electoral authorities to provide greater roles for partnerships with civil society to ensure that elections are conducted freely and fairly with accurate electoral rolls and well informed constituents. It was agreed that electoral agencies place greater focus on education of voters and intending candidates to address the issue of electoral bribery. Participants also called on all parties and independent candidates to publicly declare their policy platforms and to articulate what steps they will take to combat corruption.

Participants included the Pacific chapters of Transparency International, from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Australia and New Zealand, with observers from the Cook Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia and the TI Secretariat from Berlin. The offer from Transparency Solomon Islands to host the TI Pacific Regional Meeting in 2007 was warmly accepted.

On 13-14 March, TI Malaysia and TI Indonesia conducted Capacity Building and Training Workshops on the theme of promoting transparency and accountability in local government public procurement. The workshops aimed to introduce innovative mechanisms and tools to prevent corruption in local public contracting and procurement, and were as a part of a wider European Commission funded project. A similar workshop was held in Pakistan in September 2005. In Indonesia, participants representing local governments and civil society from five districts - Wonosobo, Mota Baru, Tanah Batar, Solok, and Tandgerang - gathered to discuss diagnosis and prognosis of local corruption. The final product of this project will be a handbook for civil society practitioners and local government public officials on how to ensure transparent and accountable public procurement. The handbook and the outcomes of the project will be shared at a regional workshop on 28-28 June in Bali, Indonesia. For more information, contact Project Manager Lisa Prevenslik-Takeda at: lptakeda@transparency.org

Transparency International-UK is currently working on a defence project to engage stakeholders in the defense and security sector to bring about change in a sector widely perceived to be one of the most prone to corruption. One objective of this project is to increase awareness of the existence of corruption in the defense and security sector, its negative effects, the factors that make this sector particularly vulnerable to corruption, and to work together with industry and governments to create change.
TI-UK has asked John Githongo, former Kenyan Secretary of State for Governance and Ethics, to conduct a series of interviews to raise the profile of the issue. Interviews will be conducted with reformist defense ministers (such as the Polish and Latvian defense ministers) and others (such as Lord Robertson, former NATO secretary general).
Look for more on this story in next month's Transparency Watch. For more details now, contact Dominic Scott at TI-UK: dominic.scott@transparency.org.uk

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova highlighted collaboration between themselves and Transparency International-Moldova in a 20 minute video for bringing corruption to light in certain institutions, such as District Hall. For more information contact lilia@transparency.md.

Transparencia Paraguay presented the final report on the execution of the project “Sworn declaration of public officials’ goods” in January 2006. This report is the result of a risk map assembled by the Paraguay chapter which identifies areas and procedures that are vulnerable to corruption. The declaration of goods aims to publicly establish levels of wealth for the purpose of comparing these levels before and after an individual has held public office.

The day of the presentation of the results, María del Pilar Callizo, President of Transparencia Paraguay, talked about the importance of transparency in the public officials’ sworn declarations. After the presentation, the General Comptroller of the Republic, Octavio Airaldi, publicly committed to take into account and apply Transparencia Paraguay’s recommendations.

Transparencia Paraguay Recommendations:

• Sign a Cooperation Agreement with the Public Function Secretary to establish a mechanism for updating data of active public officers and of those who have not yet presented their sworn declaration of goods.
• Promote the regulation of the National Constitution Article 104.
• Publicise through the media, and refer to the District Attorney, the names of those public officials who have not presented their sworn declaration of goods.
• Modify the required declaration form in order to obtain detailed information on the officials' wealth.
• Optimise with technical infrastructure, and strengthen the staff (officials and auditors) of the Public Sworn Declaration Management Area.
• Carry out verification and analysis of the officials’ sworn declarations of goods.
• Promote the maintenance of the sworn declaration of goods database with digital technology.

To know more about the methodology and findings, please click here; http://www.transparencia.org.py/upload/files/INFORMEFINALPROYECTOCONTRALORIA.doc

Transparency International- Macedonia celebrates the adoption of new access to information legislation by the Macedonia assembly on 25 January 2006.
TI-Macedonia has been involved in the working group on this legislation with the Ministry of Justice since 2003.

In February 2006, TI Japan Deputy Director Toru Umeda published a book on business ethics in Japanese.

The National Youth Initiative Against Corruption in Malawi prepared a whisleblower manual, released in September 2005.

Four TI national chapters in Latin America have designated new executive directors. Cristhian Bahamonde, having worked at CLD (TI-Ecuador) for many years, was promoted to executive director in October 2005. In January 2006 Cecilia Blondet began as ED in Proetica (TI-Peru), and in February 2006 Jacqueline Plass took over in Chile and Margareth Florez in Colombia.

Past exectuive directors remain very much involved in the TI movement: Valeria Merino sits on both the TI and CLD Board of Directors, Laura Puertas (Peru) now sits on the TI Board of Directors and Rosa Inés Ospina remains involved in the Governing Council of Transparencia por Colombia.

New Transparency International national chapters, accredited in October 2005:

• TI Haiti
• TI Japan
• TI Pakistan
• TI Serbia

New Transparency International national chapters, accredited in November 2005:

• TI Niger
• TI Venezuela

New Transparency International national chapter, accredited in March 2006:

• TI Vanuatu