Transparency International elects new board and appeals to rich countries to enforce OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
TI’s Annual General Meeting elects new board members from Zimbabwe, Argentina, UK and India
Peter Eigen, co-founder of Transparency International (TI), the anti-corruption organisation, was elected by TI's Annual General Meeting to a fourth term as the organisation's Chairman. Rosa Inés Ospina, Executive Director of TI's national chapter Transparencia por Colombia, was elected as Vice-Chair of the global movement. TI's Annual General Meeting in Casablanca, Morocco, was attended by more than 300 delegates from 105 countries. The assembly also elected four new members of the TI Board of Directors.
The new board members are: Laurence Cockcroft, an international development economist, co-founder of TI and Chairman of TI-UK, John Makumbe, a board member of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and Chairman of TI-Zimbabwe, Luis Moreno Ocampo, a leading lawyer who from 1985-87 prosecuted the generals who ruled Argentina before the return to democracy, Chairman of TI Argentina (Poder Ciudadano) and President of the regional grouping of TI chapters in Latin America and the Caribbean (TILAC), and R.H. Tahiliani, a former Admiral in the Indian navy and Chairman of TI-India.
Appeal to rich countries to finance monitoring of OECD Convention enforcement
The TI Annual General Meeting passed a motion calling on the governments that signed the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention "to provide the funds needed to monitor whether the Convention's prohibition of bribery in international business transactions is being enforced". No one has yet been sentenced under the Convention, which came into force in 1999, and only a handful of cases are being investigated worldwide. The TI movement warned that a failure to provide the necessary funds "would send a message that the political will to combat international bribery is collapsing. It would also convey the impression that governments are withholding funds because they fear exposure of their lack of action to enforce the Convention. TI's Annual Meeting expresses its deep concern that the bright hopes raised by the adoption of the ground-breaking OECD Convention are being dashed."
Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter 'an inspiration'
TI also wrote a letter congratulating former US President Jimmy Carter, a member of TI's Advisory Council, upon the announcement that he will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2002. The letter stated: "As a member of TI's Advisory Council you are a continuing source of inspiration for the thousands of women and men who are members of our global movement to combat corruption. In your statement accepting the prize, your magnanimity was reflected when you said: 'The honour serves as an inspiration not only to us but to suffering people around the world' and that you wished on this day to talk about 'peace and human rights and the alleviation of suffering and the promotion of freedom'. We are truly inspired by these words to re-dedicate ourselves to combat corruption across the globe, as it is corruption that impedes those very goals to which you drew the world's attention."
TI's New Board Members
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Laurence Cockcroft |
Laurence Cockcroft is a development economist who has worked for the Governments of Zambia and Tanzania, as a consultant to various international organisations (UN, FAO, World Bank, etc.), for a large private UK-based agri business company (Booker) and for the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. He was a founder member of the boards of TI and TI-UK, serving two terms on the former. During the period from 2000-2002 he has chaired the international group which has developed the Business Principles for Countering Bribery. He became Chairman of TI-UK in 2000 and pioneered the work of TI-UK on Corruption in the Official Arms Trade. |
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John Makumbe |
John Makumbe is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Zimbabwe. He is the co-author of Behind the Smokescreen: The Politics of Zimbabwe's 1995 General Elections, and Chairman of TI-Zimbabwe. He is a Board member of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, and Chairman of the Zimbabwe Albino Association, Trans World Radio, Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender, and the African Development Educators' Network. Makumbe has carried out consultancy assignments in management training, institutional evaluation, programme evaluation, democracy and good governance, and in the management of the information sector for democratic development and public participation. |
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Luis Moreno Ocampo |
Luis Moreno Ocampo has been working against corruption since 1988. From 1985 to 1987 he was a prosecutor in cases against the generals who ruled Argentina in the years of military dictatorship. From 1988 to 1992 he was the criminal District Attorney of Buenos Aires, in charge of cases of military rebellion and dozens of corruption cases. Since 1992, Ocampo has been in private practice in criminal law, working on cases of political bribery, protection of journalists, money laundering, and gender and money conflicts between shareholders of big companies. He is a visiting professor at Stanford University and Harvard University, and is the author of In Self-defense. How to avoid corruption? Since 1989, he has led the anti-corruption programme of Poder Ciudadano ("Citizen Power"), the Argentine national chapter of TI. Since 1995, he has been a Member of the Advisory Committee of TI, and he serves as President of the regional grouping of TI chapters in Latin America and the Caribbean (TILAC). |
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Admiral R.H.Tahiliani (retired) |
R.H. Tahiliani joined the Indian Navy in February 1948. He qualified as a pilot, a flying instructor and then a test pilot. He commanded a carrier-borne fighter squadron and three warships, the Western Fleet, Southern and Western Naval Commands before becoming Chief of Naval Staff in November 1984. After retiring, in 1988 Tahiliani joined the Servants of the Peoples Society, an NGO devoted to working for the underprivileged. He served as the Governor of the strategic border state of Sikkim from February 1990 to September 1994 and afterwards returned to the Servants of the Peoples Society. A founder member of Transparency International India, Admiral Tahiliani has been its Chairman practically since its inception. He is one of the trustees of the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief and President of Delhi Symphony Society. |
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