Public financial management

Peru’s Integrity Week celebrates transparency and good governance, including for the environment

While most of the world celebrates International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December, Peru has kickstarted a new tradition: an entire week dedicated to integrity, transparency and anti-corruption events and celebrations. The country celebrated its first Semana de Integridad Pública – Public Integrity Week – last December, following the passing of a law that dedicates the second week of December each year to the occasion. The aim is to reinforce the country’s commitment to transparency and ethics in public administration. Our teams were closely involved in the various events that took place across the country. Building integrity in public finance management Members of our Subnational Public Finance Management programme or Programa GFP Subnacional organised and participated in 14 events in nine different regions. In total, the events involved more than 2,000 individuals in person and a similar number online. Topics included ethical leadership, policies and strategies to mitigate risks and promote transparency in public administrations, and the role of asset forfeiture in fostering integrity and reducing impunity for corruption. The discussions and workshops underscored the commitment of the Swiss-funded programme to: Strengthen capacities: Provide tools and practical knowledge to identify and manage the risks that affect public integrity. Promote multi-stakeholder dialogue: Encourage collaboration between different parties, including government, the private sector and civil society, to address ethical and transparency challenges together. Inspire action: Promote a culture of integrity and accountability as the basis for inclusive and sustainable development. Green corruption high on the agenda Our Green Corruption prevention team, funded by the UK's Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, also participated in 18 separate events, reaching over 6,000 participants in person and more online. Our team drew attention to the fact that corruption is a key enabler of illegal trade in natural resources. Illegal logging in the Peruvian Amazon, illegal mining or wildlife trafficking pose serious threats to the country’s environment, people and economy. But these complex crimes can’t be addressed without an active focus on corruption prevention. The prominence of this topic during Integrity Week is an important achievement. It reflects increased awareness and interest in green corruption among Peruvian authorities, specifically from the Ministries of the Environment and Agriculture, as well as the national Secretariat for Public Integrity that led the organisation of the events. Learn more See the press release in Spanish . See photo highlights from events in Loreto. Watch a series of three debates about asset recovery law and practice in Peru, released at the same time as Integrity Week.

Cutting corruption in public procurement in Bulgaria: legal reforms and multi-agency training

Corruption and fraud risks in public procurement are a concern all over the world – including Bulgaria, where scandals around infrastructure and procurement projects damage trust in government, drain the public budget and may also affect EU development funds. The good news is that Bulgaria is taking steps to address these risks. On the prevention side, this includes important reforms to its procurement legislation in 2023 that will help it comply with EU legislative requirements and commitments under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan as well as to prepare for future OECD membership. The Public Procurement Act provides for the establishment of an expert advisory council to the Minister of Finance, which will analyse implementation of the law and issue guidelines to harmonise audit controls. The Basel Institute has been asked to provide assistance in establishing the council and advising its members. On the enforcement side, the country is also working hard to strengthen the capacity of law enforcement agencies to detect, investigate and prosecute corruption in infrastructure projects and procurement and to recover stolen funds. In support of these efforts, the Training Team of our International Centre for Asset Recovery ICAR led a specialised training programme on Corruption in Infrastructure Projects and Procurement in the Bulgarian capital Sofia last week. Funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC under the Swiss-Bulgarian Cooperation Programme, the five-day workshop brought together 23 participants including investigators, prosecutors and judges as well as representatives from state anti-corruption, public procurement and auditing agencies. Half of the participants were women. Red flags and recovered assets The training workshop centred on a simulated investigation into the fictitious Deputy Director of the Road Infrastructure Agency. The participants worked in task force groups to identify red flags and unravel the complex schemes used by the favoured contractor to manipulate public tenders. They revealed the clever methods that the Deputy Director used to secure bribes and kickbacks and collected evidence to prove the corruption and money laundering offences in court. The recovery of stolen assets laundered domestically in Bulgaria as well as in the European Union and globally was a significant focus. Participants commented on the professionalism of the trainers, Phyllis Atkinson and Tom Walugembe, with one highlighting the value of “learning directly from individuals who have been involved in major cases in the past”. They also emphasised the balance between theory and practice and the “engagement of the participants with a specific case”, followed by presentations by each group on different aspects of the investigation and asset recovery process covered during the week. Enhancing enforcement capacity The workshop took place at the National Institute of Justice, whose mission is to develop knowledge, skills and competencies in Bulgaria's judicial system and thus promote the rule of law. Opening the workshop, Emil Dechev, Deputy Minister of Justice, pointed out that the training was a natural continuation of earlier training under a partnership between the Basel Institute and the Bulgarian Government. He emphasised the importance of enhancing capacity to investigate corruption and money laundering in this area, as the biggest losses for the Bulgarian national budget lay in public procurement. If Bulgaria could stem the outflow of money, he said, it would be able build roads and other critical infrastructure and allow Bulgarians to live more comfortably. The workshop was closed by Thomas Stauffer, Head of the Swiss Contribution Office in Bulgaria, who emphasised the importance of the training for the success of the country’s national agenda. He stated that procurement was one of the most important and visible fields in which corruption was experienced, where private interests were served at the expense of all.

Building integrity from the ground up in Mozambique: training programme

Mozambique faces critical infrastructure challenges – and opportunities – across all areas of its economy. Yet the type of high-value procurement and infrastructure projects needed to boost development in the country are well known to be vulnerable to corruption. Risk factors include the high complexity, large transactions and multi-party negotiations that require close cooperation between the public and private sectors. To ensure procurement projects are not hijacked by corrupt interests, law enforcement officials need specific training to identify and investigate corruption and, if necessary, to recover stolen funds. Gaining specialised knowledge From 6-9 November 2023, 23 anti-corruption practitioners took part in ICAR's specialised training programme on "Corruption in Infrastructure Projects and Procurement" at the Prosecutor General's Office in Maputo, Mozambique. ICAR experts Phyllis Atkinson, Tom Walugembe and Emmanuel Mringo explored the most common fraudulent practices in procurement and infrastructure projects together with participants. In Mozambique as elsewhere, these include non-compliance with contract specifications, inflated invoices, product substitution, false claims and over-invoicing. The sessions led into interactive workshops and a simulated corruption case which participants investigated in teams. Learning through investigation ICAR courses allow participants to test out new knowledge and receive real-time feedback on their evolving skills by investigating a simulated case of public procurement corruption. In this course, a simulated case in a road construction project tested participants' ability to identify the "red flags" that can reveal a corruption scheme such as bid rigging, collusive bidding, fraud, conflict of interest, bribery and kickbacks. Participants found the learning structure helpful, with one stating: The methodology used for the course was excellent. The explanations in the presentations were directly relevant to the practical exercise. I will apply these new skills when investigating cases of corruption and the embezzlement of state funds. ICAR’s "learning by doing” approach means that participants are able to quickly apply new skills and easily transfer them to their daily work. As another participant noted: The training was excellent. It connects with very pertinent aspects of my day-to-day work. That means I was able to acquire more skills and investigative methodologies in the various legal types of crime that were covered here. This will enable me to achieve better results. Constructing the local context The participants' presentations at the end of the training demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the various offences common to public procurement corruption cases, such as abuse of office, passive corruption, embezzlement and money laundering. Importantly, their new knowledge was tailored to the local context, taking into account Mozambican law and procedures. Identifying and confiscating illicit assets was also a major focus of the training, through the use of both criminal/extended forfeiture laws and in the future, we hope, new civil forfeiture mechanisms. The successful implementation of these mechanisms is crucial to preventing future corruption in infrastructure and procurement. Learn more Learn more about ICAR’s training programmes and team. The training programme was delivered in the context of a long-running partnership with the Attorney General’s Office of Mozambique that started in 2019 and is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC . Through a local team of field experts, we provide technical assistance and ongoing capacity building to law enforcement and judicial practitioners in investigating financial crimes and recovering illicit assets. Mozambique is also at the heart of a new Knowledge Community on Asset Recovery that arose from the ICAR-organised Lisbon Conference in 2022.

Green Corruption programme launches 5-year partnership with USAID Indonesia Integrity Initiative

The Basel Institute's Green Corruption programme has recently launched a five-year partnership with the USAID Indonesia Integrity Initiative USAID INTEGRITAS project in Indonesia. The project is a new, USD 9.9 million USAID initiative implemented by a consortium of NGOs led by KEMITRAAN Partnership for Governance Reform . Other partners include Indonesia Corruption Watch ICW and Transparency International Indonesia TI-Indonesia . USAID and the Basel Institute have cooperated with the Government of Indonesia on combating corruption for over a decade. The Basel Institute's Green Corruption programme Team Leader, Juhani Grossmann, noted: It is a great pleasure to be back in Indonesia, working with a 'dream team' of partners to jointly tackle one of the most complex issues of our times: environmental corruption. KEMITRAAN Executive Director, Laode Muhammad Syarif, said: We are excited about the consortium we have put together for this work, drawing upon our own experience and the work of our outstanding partners ICW and TI-Indonesia on the domestic front, combined with the international expertise of the team at the Basel Institute. We are optimistic about the changes we can achieve over the next five years by bringing our collective expertise to bear, in cooperation with key government institutions involved in corruption prevention efforts. The project will focus on preventing corruption in the environmental field, both in the public and private sectors, through a dual-tracked approach of systems strengthening and public engagement. It seeks to improve transparency, reduce conflicts of interest and promote accountability. The Basel Institute's Collective Action, Public Governance and Green Corruption teams will support the consortium members, the Government of Indonesia and private and state-owned enterprises SOEs . The scope covers improving integrity systems in government agencies and SOEs, developing targeted anti-corruption public education strategies, and supporting private-sector and multi-stakeholder Collective Action efforts in the environmental sector.

How service delivery charters in Ghana are creating dialogue between citizens, businesses and government

This case study and Q&A looks at a recent UK Business Integrity Initiative-funded project in Ghana to create and implement 10 service delivery charters for government licensing and approval authorities through a Collective Action approach. The project was carried out by the Ghana Integrity Initiative, which is the local chapter of Transparency International, in collaboration with the Private Enterprise Federation. What is the idea behind service delivery charters? Service delivery charters SDCs are tools meant to close the critical knowledge gap between service providers and service users. The paradigm example is this: A citizen or businessperson goes into the local vehicle authority office and requests a replacement driving licence, a process that should cost 100 cedis and take one week. “It will take 4 weeks and cost 200 cedis,” says the official, “but I can arrange it more quickly if you pay me an express fee.” How can someone in that situation demand compliance if they do not know what they should expect from a government service provider and what they can demand? Time and again, our assessments have shown that this kind of systemic knowledge imbalance opens up opportunities for corruption. The basic idea behind service charters is to close that knowledge gap. But to us, more important than the document is the conversations that take place between the different stakeholders. We didn’t start this project with the aim of creating 10 pieces of paper, but of getting more businesses to engage openly and productively with public institutions on integrity issues. Who benefits and how? In theory, service delivery charters are a win-win-win tool. Citizens and businesses receive enhanced standards of service, including faster turnaround times and standard and predictable pricing. They are less likely to be asked to pay extra “fees” for regular services, increasing trust in institutions. Another benefit from the government’s perspective is that if services are provided properly and on time, then productivity increases. Tell us about SDCs in practice Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice CHRAJ had already developed a template service delivery charter, or “client service charter” as it was known, in collaboration with the Public Sector Reform Secretariat. But there were challenges in implementing the idea effectively. One barrier to implementation that we noted is a lack of capacity in government authorities. Our approach therefore includes support for building this capacity through a sustainable “train the trainer” model plus a written manual. Another barrier is getting buy-in from all sides: high-level politicians, the officials in charge of providing the services, and the citizens and businesses that use them. This is why we need a Collective Action approach that encourages dialogue and fosters mutual understanding. Our goal was not just to create and roll out the charters, but to get more businesses to engage with public institutions on integrity issues. Why the focus on business-government dialogue? As a local chapter of Transparency International, the Ghana Integrity Initiative is a civil society organisation that works towards reducing corruption in our country. We see that the biggest users of government services – and therefore those most often exposed to corruption – are businesses that interact with authorities to obtain licences, permits, vehicle registrations, etc. To better understand the needs and experiences of businesses in Ghana, and to get them actively involved in this Collective Action, we partnered with the Private Enterprise Federation PEF . The PEF is a non-profit, non-political, independent apex business association. It represents the majority of various umbrella Ghanaian business associations and chambers that are constituted by individual businesses. Can you take us through the process of developing an SDC? We took the CHRAJ’s template charter as a base and worked collaboratively to enhance it, drawing in expertise to make sure it better reflects Ghana’s legislative frameworks for service delivery and related institutional arrangements. We also studied best practices in comparison to what was really happening on the ground. The next stage involved a gap analysis, in which we visited the authorities, assessed the various services they offered and established the “value chain” of each service from start to finish. We invariably found gaps, which we discussed in detail at a meeting with the heads of each authority. How can we close these gaps? And how can we then codify them back into the service charter? We found both the private-sector representatives and the government counterparts to be proactive and interested throughout the process. Some officials added extra provisions to the charter and made suggestions to improve it. They also told their counterparts in other government departments about our joint work, and we started to receive further requests for support outside the original scope of the project. A good sign, I think, that the project provided value. The moment of truth was bringing the private and public sector representatives together in a meeting to validate the final document and tie up any loose ends. Facilitating such a meeting requires great sensitivity and an understanding of how to build trust between the groups. Roll-out and communication what is the plan? At the very least, the service delivery charters will be put up at the point of service delivery. The Federation will also inform those members who have not been involved in the project until now. On the government side, the Minister for Public Service Reform was due to launch the charters earlier this year. This was disrupted due to the pandemic. High-level endorsement of anti-corruption tools is important, so we hope this will still go ahead shortly despite the disruption caused by the elections this month. With additional funding support, we would be able to roll them out through the media, such as radio talk shows where service providers and users discuss the charters and what value they bring. Short messages and information campaigns on social media also have a lot of potential to inform local citizens. And then? First we want to make sure they continue to be implemented and effective in practice. The authorities can expect some “mystery clients”… Second, we’d like to them to be codified into law. This would add teeth to the charters by making them legally enforceable. Third, we would like to expand the project and roll it out to more institutions, particularly at the subnational level, as this is where most people actually interact with service providers. Given the higher levels of illiteracy outside of the nation’s capital Accra, this would need to go hand in hand with greater support for local people and businesses in monitoring service delivery as well as budgets and procurement. Any final message to fellow anti-corruption practitioners? You don’t always need to reinvent the wheel, you need to make the wheels you have roll faster and better. In other words, it’s important that existing transparency and anti-corruption mechanisms are actually implemented effectively and sustainably. And the best way to do this is through a Collective Action approach that gets all sides around the table, talking, understanding each other, building trust and buying in to the benefits. You can find this project and 260+ other anti-corruption Collective Action projects on the database of the B20 Collective Action Hub. About the UK Business Integrity Initiative and Challenge Fund The UK's Business Integrity Initiative Challenge Fund was launched to support innovative, business-focused, Collective Action initiatives aiming at reducing corruption or promoting human rights to improve the investment climate in emerging markets and developing countries. IMC Worldwide has been working closely with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office FCDO as the Business Integrity Initiative Challenge Fund Manager. Find out more. The UK Business Integrity Initiative previously supported a project of the Basel Institute to provide training and guidance packages to small- and medium-sized businesses on anti-corruption compliance, corruption and bribery prevention, and anti-corruption Collective Action. Although the subsidies have now ended, the Basel Institute continues to provide these cost-effective and tailored packages to interested SMEs all over the world. Find out more.

Human resource management patterns of (anti) corruption mechanisms within informal networks