Mongolia digitalized land registration / Open Contracting Legislative Guide / Thailand oil conglomerate policy

Mongolia: fully digitalized land registration government services.  “On October 1, 2021, Mongolia introduced an electronic land registration system and fully digitalized land registration government services. This allows citizens and businesses to receive documents related to land possession and use them free of charge, reducing unnecessary permits, queues, and paperwork.”

Independent Authority Against Corruption of Mongolia: https://iaac.mn/news/mongolia-fully-digitalized-land-registration-government-services/  

 

Open Contracting Legislative Guide (Resource).  “This new report provides insights and guidance on how countries have cemented open contracting approaches into their legislation modernizing public procurement, supporting reforms that put transparency, efficiency, and equity at its core.”

Open Contracting Partnership: https://www.open-contracting.org/resources/open-contracting-legislative-guide/  

 

IRPC vows to stamp out corruption.  IRPC Plc, a petrochemical arm of [Thailand’s] national oil and gas conglomerate PTT Plc, has announced zero tolerance of corruption, a major hindrance to national economic development and business progress in the private sector.”

Yuthana Praiwan/Bangkok Post: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2205243/irpc-vows-to-stamp-out-corruption  

Narrative of anti-corruption failure / Thailand reopening jeopardized / Republic of Korea casino hiring scandal

Guest Post: Contesting the Narrative of Anticorruption Failure (Blog).  “My point here is not to denigrate academics…But still, a certain strain in academic writing about anticorruption efforts disturbs me. This strain overemphasizes and exaggerates failure…My challenge to the world’s finest scholars on corruption is this: spend as much time as you have on analyzing failure on finding out what has worked, and why it worked.”

Robert Barrington/The Global Anticorruption Blog: https://globalanticorruptionblog.com/2021/10/18/guest-post-contesting-the-narrative-of-anticorruption-failure/#more-19056  

 

Corruption jeopardises reopening plan (Opinion).  “All the Covid-19 debacles have been derived from corruption and dereliction of duty of state officials who turned a blind eye to legal violations by some business operators. Unless the government learns the lessons and truly tackle such malpractice, it will not be possible to keep the coronavirus at bay.”

Chairith Yonpiam/Bangkok Post: https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2202783/corruption-jeopardises-reopening-plan  

 

Court says Kangwon Land justified in firing 222 staff hired via labor corruption scandal.  “A South Korean Court has ruled that Kangwon Land, the country’s only casino at which locals are allowed to gamble, was justified in dismissing 222 employees...[who] employees had all been beneficiaries of a labor hire scandal which saw Kangwon Land hire more than 500 staff via political and internal connections between November 2012 and April 2013.”

Inside Asian Gaming: https://www.asgam.com/index.php/2021/10/25/court-says-kangwon-land-justified-in-firing-222-staff-hired-via-labor-corruption-scandal/  

UNDP public procurement event / Beneficial ownership and Pandora Papers / Future of OGP and EITI

The Role of Public Procurement in Achieving the SDGs (Virtual Event).  “We are pleased to invite you to the ASEAN Regional Dialogue on The Role of Public Procurement in Achieving the SDGs, which will take place on 27th and 28th October 2021…The Regional Dialogue will bring together government representatives from the region, private sector leaders and civil society representatives interested in learning more about and/or implementing the sustainable public procurement agenda via the SDGs, integrity, and value-for-money lenses.”

UNDP: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VRLV-5hMT4Cer83wZQ4gBA  

 

Pandora Papers: Lessons for beneficial ownership transparency? (Blog).  “Whilst the Pandora Papers confirm the already known problems associated with current business as usual, they also include signs of progress. It is clear that beneficial ownership information is a fundamental piece of data to aid the fight against financial crime, but much work remains to ensure data is accurate and available to those who need it.”

Open Ownership: https://www.openownership.org/blogs/pandora-papers-lessons-for-beneficial-ownership-transparency/  

 

OGP at 10, EITI at 20: Where to next? (Blog).  “[The] differences between the mandates of the two organisations offer longer-term opportunities for shared learning. The [Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s] private sector constituency provides a vital strand in its multi-stakeholder governance structure with growing opportunities to strengthen corporate accountability through participation in the EITI process…[Open Government Partnership’s] goal of promoting a participatory and inclusive vision of democracy offers insights for the EITI, especially in fragile states.”

Mark Robinson/Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative: https://eiti.org/blog/ogp-at-10-eiti-at-20-where-to-next  

World Bank anti-corruption symposium / Connecting anti-corruption and human rights / Proactive Integrity Reviews

Symposium on Data Analytics and Anticorruption (Event).  “A Symposium on Data Analytics and Anticorruption will be co-hosted by the World Bank and the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management on October 25-28…The papers cover four thematic areas: New data-driven approaches to detecting and measuring corruption; Using new data sources and methods to measure the impacts of corruption; Using open data to assess the effectiveness of anticorruption tools, policies, and interventions; Contributing new knowledge on  data access, quality, and privacy issues.”

World Bank: https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2021/10/25/symposium-on-data-analytics-and-anticorruption#1  

Thank you to James Anderson, World Bank for sharing this news.

 

Connecting the anti-corruption and human rights agendas: challenges and opportunities for Collective Action (Blog).  “While a majority of participating companies identified potential synergies between the human rights agenda and anti-corruption compliance, it was also generally acknowledged that human rights and corruption are two distinct topics. In other words, they should not (and cannot) be completely merged. Rather, they need to be seen as an overarching compliance and risk topic and thus embedded into risk management processes, but also treated discretely when necessary.”

Vanessa Hans/Basel: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021/10/03/political-funding-act-will-differentiate-political-funds-from-graft  

 

Proactive Integrity Reviews: A Preventive Mechanism Against Corruption (Resource).  “This publication provides a better understanding of how proactive integrity reviews (PIRs) help prevent and detect integrity violation indicators (fraud, corruption, collusion, coercion, abuse, conflict of interest, and obstruction).”

Asian Development Bank: https://www.adb.org/publications/proactive-integrity-reviews-mechanism-against-corruption  

Thailand gloves procurement case / Indonesia ministers in Pandora Papers / Mongolia imprisonment sentence implementation

Gloves come off in corruption case.  “The Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO) [under the Ministry of Commerce Thailand] has fired three senior officials for alleged corruption in the purchase of 112.5-billion-baht (approx. US$3.3 billio) worth of rubber gloves and ordered them to pay 2 billion baht (approx. US$59 million) compensation in damages.”

Phusadee Arunmas/Bangkok Post: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2193591/gloves-come-off-in-corruption-case  

 

Coordinating ministers named in Pandora Papers.  “Two of Indonesia’s coordinating ministers are mentioned in the latest leak of financial documents, dubbed the Pandora Papers, which revealed they had established offshore shellcopmanies in tax havens, allegedly tying them to unreported wealth stored overseas…Among them are Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan and Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto”

Dio Suhenda and Yerica Lai/The Jakarta Post: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2021/10/05/coordinating-ministers-named-in-pandora-papers.html  

 

Mongolia: implementation of imprisonment sentence for corruption crimes.  “According to the report, 203 people were convicted in 95 cases, 26 people were acquitted in 17 cases, 10 cases involving 26 people were dismissed, of which 5 cases were dismissed on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired...[An] issue mentioned in the study is that the percentage of convicts released before the end of their sentence is relatively high, at 60-80 percent of all convicts of corruption crime in a given year.”

Independent Authority Against Corruption of Mongolia: https://www.iaac.mn/news/mongolia-implementation-of-imprisonment-sentence-for-corruption-crimes/  

UNDP FairBiz newsletter / Open data interactive tool / Extractives industry new diagnostic

UNDP FairBiz in ASEAN Quarterly Newsletter.  Check out UNDP ‘Promoting a Fair Business Environment in ASEAN’ project’s updates such as the project’s extension until March 2022; our work to promite business integrity along supply chains; CoST – the Infrastructure Transparency Initiatives’ two data disclosure portals in Thailand and Indonesia launched under the project, as well as the new collaboration with UK Government Digital Service on digital transformation in Thailand.

UNDP: https://us20.campaign-archive.com/?e=__test_email__&u=b9b75ff1921ce1ba1ffc81cad&id=284c0691f2  

 

Roadmap to fight corruption with open data (Interactive tool).  “The Roadmap to fight corruption with open data provides tools and resources to support users to identify and overcome the political, technical and logistical challenges usually faced in the co-creation and implementation of OD4AC commitments. It includes cases and examples from around the world to serve as sources of inspiration in the process of building new solutions that respond to users’ own needs. It also presents lessons learned by others in similar situations to help them identify opportunities to advance their goal, as well as red flags on potential challenges and risks to be considered.”

Global Integrity, Open Data Charter, and partners: https://fightcorruption.opendatacharter.net/  

 

A New Tool in the Fight Against Corruption in the Extractive Industries (Blog).  “NRGI released the first version of Diagnosing Corruption in the Extractive Sector: A Tool for Research and Action. By sharing this diagnostic tool, we aim to support a range of stakeholders to take evidence-based action to improve integrity in a sector highly prone to corruption.”

Alexandra Gillies, Sebastian Sahla, and Matthieu Salomon/Natural Resource Governance Institute: https://resourcegovernance.org/blog/new-tool-fight-against-corruption-extractive-industries

 

India companies fraud detection / Why anti-corruption programs fail / China financial firms scrutiny

Indian firms ahead of peers in fraud detection.  “Companies in India have bolstered their defences against bribery and corruption risk, and around 81% respondents believe that sufficient board-level attention and investment is given to bribery and corruption risk, well above the global average (72%), according to Global Fraud and Risk Report by Kroll, which provides services and digital products related to valuation, governance, risk and transparency.”

Livemint: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-inc-lead-global-peers-in-use-of-data-analytics-to-identify-bribery-report-11631611784301.html  

 

Three Reasons Anti-Corruption Programs Fail (Blog).  “In my new book Controlling Corruption: The Social Contract Approach, I argue that this huge policy failure can be explained by three main factors. First, and most importantly, the principal-agent theory that has dominated anti-corruption efforts from the World Bank to development organizations represents a serious misspecification of the basic nature of the problem…[Secondly,] the corruption problem has been poorly conceptualized since what should count as the opposite of corruption has been excluded from the discussion…[Thirdly,] corruption has been located in the wrong social spaces. It is neither a cultural nor a legal problem.”

Bo Ruthstein/Tufts University: https://www.corruptionjusticeandlegitimacy.org/post/three-reasons-anti-corruption-programs-fail  

   

China steps up anti-corruption drive as Evergrande crisis puts spotlight on financial risk.  “China’s top anti-corruption official will launch a nationwide audit of major financial firms and regulators to eliminate risk in the sector, following debt crises at state-owned financial conglomerate Huarong and private property developer China Evergrande.”

Frank Tang/South China Morning Post: https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3150305/china-steps-anti-corruption-drive-evergrande-crisis-puts