The TI chapter in Bahrain, the Bahrain Transparency Society (BTS), organised a seminar with the parliament on professional parliamentary interrogation. The event inaugurated with opening speeches by the president of BTS Mr. Abdulnabi Alekry and the Vice-President of the Parliament. Two papers were presented by former MPs from Kuwait and Bahrain, followed by a debate and workshops, which concluded with recommendations to the Parliament and political blocks. The seminar was attended by the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, several current and former MPs, as well as representatives of political and public organisations and the media.

Following the successful elections at the end of December 2008 in Ghana, the TI chapter, the Ghana Integrity Initiative, called for both outgoing and incoming government public officials to declare their assets. Every public official needs to declare her or his assets, as required by national legislation at the beginning and end of their terms of office. The law covers the President, Vice-President, Ministers and Parliamentarians, including officials who left office before the end of their term. At the same time, the chapter draws attention to the weaknesses of the Asset Declaration Law, and calls on the government to address the Regulations for Act 550, which is awaiting Parliament’s approval, within the first 100 days in office.

TI Kenya has expressed concern following two recent corruption scandals within the energy and national food security sectors, which underlines the scale of corruption, the extent of capture in state institutions and the disregard for public welfare in the Grand Coalition Government. TI Kenya calls for transparent food security management measures, such as the regular publication and public audit of strategic grain reserves, as well as for the immediate investigation and prosecution of the government officials, business people and any other person involved in the current frauds.

According to the chapter, the lack of transparency in the conduct of public affairs is what leads to the capture of state institutions by corrupt businesses. The passing of the Freedom of Information Bill will allow the public to scrutinise public processes and decisions before corruption occurs. The complete press release can be found at: www.tikenya.org/viewnews.asp?ID=1206

Under the slogan of "Towards the rule of law and the independence of the Judiciary", Transparency International’s chapter in Palestine (AMAN - Coalition for Integrity and Accountability) held its annual transparency festival. The festival was held in the cities of Ramallah and Gaza through video conferencing facilities on the occasion of the International Anti-corruption Day.

The festivities included the annual Integrity and Accountability awards, which went to two journalists. Ghazi Bani Odeh received the award for his investigative reporting on expired and counterfeit food and medicines and Abdel Basset Khalaf for his work on urban sprawling in the Palestinian agricultural areas. The 2008 Integrity and Accountability award for public sector employees went to Ibrahim Qindah who was suffered harassment after he blew the whistle on corruption cases in the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, which involved bribery and exploitation of public position. The National Insurance Company received the the private sector award.

The chapter also organised and celebrated the winners of a drawing competition under the theme "Children of Palestine: an Eye on Corruption", in which thousands of children from more than a hundred of UNRWA and private schools in both of the West Bank and Gaza Strip took part.

The TI chapter in Sierra Leone, the National Accountability Group, organised a series of events commemorating Anti-corruption Day. Events included a quiz competition and debate for schools as part of the chapters anti-corruption education programme “Sowing Seed of Integrity”, radio discussions and a vigil in collaboration with the Inter-Religious Council in the run-up to the day. On 9 December, a public message was broadcast by radio and a procession took place in collaboration with other civil society organisations in the streets of Freetown, targeting schools and young people. The activities were organised with the national Anti-Corruption Commission and the Human Rights Commission. Banners will be on display in the whole country throughout the week to raise awareness.

Chile Transparente, the TI chapter in Chile, has launched an exciting new publicity campaign called “A Chile free of corruption, get involved!”. Rather than focusing on corruption in elite circles, such as political corruption or transnational fraud, the campaign aims to heighten public awareness of some of the common, everyday practices that are nonetheless tolerated in Chilean culture. The campaign will appear in the national newspaper La Tercera, on Santiago de Chile’s public transport system, on billboards and the radio so as to reach as many people as possible. Thanks to a new online portal dedicated to the campaign, members of the public will be able to submit contributions to the “Dictionary of Corrupt Language,” which will record and define the everyday slang used to refer to dishonest practices. In the second phase of the campaign, these terms will be distributed publicly in printed format.

For more information (in Spanish), please click here.

In October 2008, Transparency Watch reported on a national call for Mexicans to help Transparencia Mexicana and the Mexican government identify the country’s most useless administrative procedure or application, as part of planned reforms to radically streamline the state bureaucracy. The call received an overwhelming response from the public, with 20,000 entries being submitted in just one month. On 9 January, an awards ceremony was held to present the results and honour the winners. Mexican President Felipe Calderón thanked the citizens for their participation and their “truly innovative suggestions” for improvement, which he promised to take on board. Echoing the words of the President, the head of the government body responsible for the proposed reforms, Salvador Vega Casillas, recognised that citizens had been subjected to inexcusable amounts of red-tape and arbitrary mistreatment. He also stated that attention to administration surrounding job creation and generation of investment would be particular priorities for him in the upcoming restructuring process.

For more information please click here.

To coincide with Anti-Corruption Day, the TI chapter in Panama, the Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Libertad Ciudadana, released its first Index of Integrity in Public Institutions. The Index aims to diagnose the extent to which regulations preventing corruption and promoting transparency and citizen participation have been formally institutionalised in the 33 public bodies surveyed. Between March and November 2008, the chapter’s dedicated research team first solicited and then verified responses to a specially-designed questionnaire from over 300 civil servants. The results saw 9 institutions classified with a high level of integrity, 22 with a moderate level and 2 with an unstable level.

The chapter hopes that the Index will serve as a starting point from which to overturn the commonly held belief among public bodies that promoting institutional success stories constitutes adequate disclosure of information about internal management and procedures. The chapter also stated that the Index, which has already seen several bodies update their websites in compliance with Panama’s Transparency Law, reflects the growing recognition of citizens’ right to information concerning their public institutions.

For the press release and executive summary of results (in Spanish), please click here.

The results of Proética’s, the TI Peruvia chapter, 5th National Opinion Poll on Corruption (Encuesta Nacional de Corrupción) were released in December 2008. The poll reveals a marked downturn in public perceptions of corruption in the country in comparison to previous years.

The 2008 findings show public endorsement/approval of the Presidency, currently held by Alan García, has hit a new low. Disenchantment with politicians and Peruvian democracy more generally appears to have risen: the poll results reveal that García enjoys less legitimacy than his two predecessors and his administration is considered to show “little” to “very little” commitment to the fight against corruption.

In 2006, one-fifth of respondents envisaged reductions in the levels of corruption by 2011. In comparison, less than one-tenth of those surveyed in 2008 had comparable aspirations and the majority thought the problem would maintain similar proportions if not increase in magnitude. This disenchantment, accompanied by consistently or even increasingly high levels of tolerance of corrupt practices, shows the heightened urgency of Proética’s work in leading civil society efforts to involve citizens in the fight against corruption.

More information can be found here.

TI organised a training workshop on political finance in the Asia Pacific region in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 5-6 December 2008. The workshop was attended by representatives from research teams of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, as well as donor representatives. Participants shared country specific contexts, reviewed the methodology of the project and mapped out advocacy and stakeholder engagement activities as follow-up to the research.

The project seeks to develop a better understanding of political party finance through the creation of an index. Researchers from each country will examine the levels of transparency in national legislation and current practices of political parties and candidates in both election and non-election years. On this basis, comparisons of political party financing, recommendations for reform and work to develop awareness raising activities will be made across the region. The results of the study are scheduled to be published in July 2009. The project is funded by GTZ in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Malaysia.

In the run-up to last year’s elections in Bangladesh, TI Bangladesh conducted a study called "Election Tracking Process", which focused on the violation of electoral rules. The study showed that before the legally permissible campaign and spending for the same started, candidates spent a total amount of Tk 43,227,400 (US$ 650,000). Accordingly, on average each candidate spent Tk 304,418 (US$ 4,500). The two main political parties spent an equal amount of money in their campaigns, while money spent by individual candidates varied from about US$ 4,500 up to more than US$ 55,000.

The complete report can be accessed via: www.ti-bangladesh.org

On 4 December 2008, TI Belgium organised a conference on “soft corruption in bank and financial markets”, presented by Prof. Eric de Keuleneer, teacher at the Free University of Brussels. The conference aimed to show that corruption does not only take the shape of envelopes or bribes. When it comes to bank and financial institutions, it’s not unusual that mechanisms, incentives or payments divert employees, associates and sometimes clients from a basis ethics and from the interests of those they are supposed to defend. The presentation looked over some of these mechanisms, such as unethical practices performed by investment banks and rating agencies, as well as financial offers that are received on a daily basis. The presentation also examined our own behaviours as customer and employees.

The slides of the presentation (in French) are available here.

For more information, contact TI Belgium at info@transparencybelgium.be

In December, TI Bosnia and Herzegovina organised a roundtable on the state of corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Bosnian Parliament. The event, which included Miroslav Lajcak, the High Representative of the International Community and EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, took stock of the fight against corruption in the country and called for a new start to be made in the fight against corruption. The parliament leadership agreed during this roundtable on the necessity to adopt a new strategy at the parliamentarian level in order to tackle the worrying level of corruption. Issues of non-compliance of Bosnian laws with the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the ongoing project of the chapter in cooperation with the OSI (Open Society Institute) to draft a new Anti-Corruption strategy for the country were also part of the discussions.

On 12 January, the TI chapter in France, Transparence International (France), and the SHERPA association welcomed the Gabonese authorities’ decision to release Grégory Ngbwa Mintsa, Marc Ona Essangui, Georges Mpaga and Gaston Asseko on bail, following days of large-scale international mobilisation by both non-governmental groups and French authorities in Paris and Libreville, Gabon. The four civil society activists had been detained in Libreville since 30 and 31 December 2008, respectively.

The activists have been charged with “possession of a document for dissemination for the purpose of propaganda” ( Détention d'un document en vue de sa diffusion dans un but de propagande), and with ”oral or written propaganda aimed at inciting rebellion against state authorities” ( Propagande orale ou écrite en vue de l'incitation à la révolte contre les autorités), which are offences according to articles 88 and 90 of the Gabonese criminal code.

There is concern that Mr Thierry Lévy, a French lawyer mandated by their families to assure the activists’ defence, was denied at the last minute a visa so as to travel to Libreville and prepare for judicial proceedings together with Gabonese lawyer Ruphin Nkoulou Ondo, Esq.. Transparence International (France) and Sherpa urge the Gabonese authorities to allow Mr Lévy into Libreville to assure the activists’ defence.

To read the press release, please click here (English, French)

TI Deutschland in cooperation with degepol, the German Association of Political Consultants, published a paper on how to develop fair and transparent lobbying mechanisms in Germany. The catalogue of demands is directed at lobbyists as well as politicians and asks for a binding register of lobbyists, a binding and comprehensive code of conduct for lobbyists and clear regulations regarding conflict of interests. The paper, in German, can be downloaded here:
www.transparency.de/index.php?RDCT=44cb2f073785851050ec

The new TI chapter in Macedonia, Transparency Zero Corruption, organised a workshop “Building Civil Society for Anti-Corruption Reform in Macedonia” for Anti-corruption Day. The workshop held in Skopje gathered attendees from civil society in Macedonia and TI representatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Norway and Slovenia, as well as civil society organisation representatives from a number of South Eastern European countries and representatives of the donors’ community in Macedonia. Professor Josip Kregar, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, was one of the key speakers. As part of the networking event of the workshop, a number of Macedonian companies have been awarded, as in previous years, with certificates for good corporate management for 2008 by Transparency Zero Corruption and the Macedonian Chambers of Commerce. The award aims to strengthen the standards for corporative governance and ensure zero tolerance for corruption in Macedonia.

The 2008 TI Integrity Awards will take place on 17 February in London. An announcement of the winners will be circulated shortly.

Launched in 2000, the Integrity Awards honour the bravery of individuals and organisations around the globe whose efforts are making a distinct difference in curbing corruption. The programme's goal is to give greater recognition to the efforts of journalists, civil society activists, government and corporate whistleblowers who work to investigate and unmask corruption, often at great personal risk.

For further information on TI’s Integrity Awards, please click here.