Network of Anti-Corruption Specialists

UNODC has just published a research report on illicit financial flows resulting from drug trafficking and other transnational organized crimes. The report attempts to shed light on the total amounts likely to be laundered across the globe, as well as the potential attractiveness of various locations to those who launder money. The report notes that crime has short-term positive effects: laundered money is invested in small businesses, creating jobs, or saved in banks, easing credit flows and liquidity. But the medium and long term effects are destructive. Criminal groups tend to invest cash in businesses where it can be most easily hidden – real estate, restaurants, transport companies – rather than where it will generate the most profit. Criminally-backed enterprises damage competitiveness by driving legitimate firms out of business. ”Local merchants and businesses may find that they cannot compete with front companies organized to launder and conceal illicit funds. Such front companies may offer their goods and services at below-market rates or even at a loss because their primary objective is to launder money. Read the rest of this entry →

If you were not able to get to Bangkok, you do not have to wait for the next edition of the IACC will be in Brazil 2012. You can relive the sessions that took place at the 14th IACC with the reports, presentations and papers from opening speeches to specialised workshops on climate policy, social damage or aid transparency, at http://14iacc.org/programme/sessions-and-reports/.

Effective consultants work at boundaries, in that they belong to a group other than the client system. In consulting parlance, this is referred to as marginality. The consultant must function while bridging two cultures and their differing values and basic assumptions. Staying continuously at the boundary is extremely difficult. This post explains the nature of those difficulties and how networks can help consultants dealing with them, and facilitate change more effectively. Read the rest of this entry →

Canada’s federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser will include an examination of House of Commons and Senate expenses during an audit of Parliamentary spending and administration that parliamentarians allowed after resisting for four years.  MPs were justifying their resistance by the fact that the audit would be beyond the scope of the Auditor General’s mandate. Critics to this approach claimed that the decision is not favourable to the image and reputation of parliamentarians, especially given that the Auditor General has audited the Parliament in the past.

A roundtable organised by the Friends of Europe’s will take place on Thursday, 28 October 2010, in Brussels. The event will bring together a select group of some 40 high-level EU and Balkans experts, including senior representatives from EU and national institutions, international and regional organisations, NGO and civil society groups, as well as business and industry. Some 100 observers – including members of the international press – are invited to attend the high-level debate. Discussions will focus on Europe-wide policy for ensuring the rule of law across boundaries to fight organised crime, as well as on regulatory norms and supervision practices that could potentially be adopted so as to increase investor confidence in the region. Please click here for the programme and registration form.
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A consortium led by PKF-UK has been awarded a 3 year EU financed project to the Palestine National Authority (PNA) with NACS membership expertise called upon for substantive key roles: The Project comprises: (a) building capacity in technical and management skills of staff; improving the operations of the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB) support functions in the Directorate of Information Technology and Technical Support and the Planning and Capacity Development Unit; (b) establishing and building capacity of Integrity Reinforcement and Anti-corruption Department (IRAD),(c) establishing a robust legal framework for public auditing and anti-corruption and (d) assisting with building capacity of management and staff both in external services and internal support functions, through workshop styled training, on the job training and the use of guidelines and manuals to be prepared during this Project. As part of the PNA’s reforms, the SAACB was effectively established in 2006 and it officially has two headquarters, in Ramallah and Gaza with an office in Nablus. Currently the Gaza office is closed and SAACB does not carry out activities in the Gaza Strip. Whilst focusing on activities based in West Bank, the design of the Project allows for the possible inclusion of Gaza in the future. It is imperative that the capacity of SAACB’s in-house professional development and training staff is built so as to continue with ongoing training after the Project is completed. Read the rest of this entry →