This drive by MANS has found that some state institutions are still forbidding access to public documents. All requests made to the Agency for National Security, for example, were refused. However the Administrative Court has overturned the agency’s decision not to reveal how many people it employs. Other requests made by MANS, but refused by the agency, are also under review by the court, including a request for the number of persons under surveillance by the agency. The courts’ decisions are expected in the near future.

Discussions highlighted democracy and government commitment to anti-corruption measures as prerequisites to transparency, as well as the necessity for governmental anti-corruption agencies to work closely with civil society. The Nepalese Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, addressed the meeting on subjects including the ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) by South Asian countries.

Delegates also expressed their support for TI’s Asia-Pacific Anti-Corruption Learning Programme, which aims to increase TI’s impact and effectiveness in the region.

The Corporación Latinoamericana para el Desarrollo (CLD), Transparency International’s national chapter in Ecuador, presented a reform project of the Ecuadorian Criminal Code to the Ministry of Finance in the framework of its Inter-American Convention against Corruption (IACAC) implementation monitoring. The aim is to ensure that all of the crimes that the Convention anticipates, detects and sanctions are included in the laws of the country, to strengthen the Ecuadorian judicial system and avoid impunity.

The text of the reform project includes offences like bribery, unlawful enrichment, illegal seizure/appropriation of goods, as well as access to privileged information for the benefit of a political position. It also includes the actions of the law concerning public officials, which were not considered previously in the legal body. The next step is the final approval by the highest authority in the Ministry of Finance, so that the law can be discussed in the National Congress.