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Bribery in Hungary: A Close Encounter of the Third Kind

‘All countries share a responsibility to combat bribery’, according to the OECD anti-bribery convention. But a bribery case in Hungary that has seen action in several other countries, but not Hungary itself, is testing that principle. There is no obstacle stopping British or Swedish law enforcers who investigated the sale of fighter jets to Hungary […]

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Dealing in the dark: Portugal’s sad defence contracts

On 06 September, Transparency International releases its annual report on enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Right at the time the European Union is consumed with the debate over the debt crisis and politicians across the EU are busy playing the blame game, an interesting case going on in Portugal helps shed some light on […]

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Uganda’s police is up for a new challenge: to handcuff corruption

Transparency International Uganda invited our defence and security team to assess the country’s needs on anti-corruption police training. Nick Seymour and Sir Stewart Eldon, senior consultants to the defence team, visited Uganda in July. Here’s their account of the experience. Despite President Museveni’s policy of zero tolerance to corruption, in place since 2006, Uganda has […]

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Addressing defence and security corruption is in everybody’s hands

Citizens who have been victims or witnesses of corruption are realising that the ability to take action is in their hands. They also understand that this fight is not only for their sake, but also on behalf of all the people who are hurt by corruption around the world every day. Taking part in the […]

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Abordar la corrupción en defensa y seguridad está en mano de todos

Los ciudadanos que han sido víctimas o testigos de la corrupción se están dando cuenta que la capacidad de hacer algo para combatirla está en sus manos. También entienden que esta lucha no es sólo por su bien sino también en nombre de todas las personas que se ven afectadas por la corrupción alrededor del […]

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The roadmap to a new beginning

Peace agreements offer the possibility for a new beginning. They allow the international community and national governments the opportunity to strengthen governance and embed some anti-corruption controls which, in turn, will help build durable state institutions. Recent studies demonstrate that change can be achieved with the appropriate mix of political pressure, incentives, and creativity. As […]

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Passing the corruption car-test

Although tackling corruption is not an auditor’s function, audit processes can sometimes uncover irregularities better than the bodies tasked to do so. Think of it as a car test. Audits are to institutions what a car test is to you and me. Picture yourself in the unavoidable and annoying queue many have to endure every […]

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The hidden price tag of defence contracts

The Indian government recently decided to spend $11 billion  to purchase Rafale fighter jets from Dassault Aviation. The deal includes a commitment from the company to spend $6 billion in the country– a typical “offset” contract that often accompanies defence sales and can be spent on projects ranging from direct technology transfer to those unrelated […]

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Five challenges when making defence budgets more transparent

Maria Gili and Leah Wawro of Transparency International’s Defence and Security Programme outline obstacles to more transparency and accountability in how countries spend their defence budgets.   Defence budgets are the primary tool that legislators and civil society can use to hold their governments and armed forces to account and see how their taxes are […]

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Bribe Payers Index 2011: What is happening in defence?

Mark Pyman , Director of Transparency International’s Defence and Security Programme, discusses contradictory research in the defence sector. The new 2011 Bribe Payers Index (BPI) was published last week and throws up some interesting findings. Bribery seems to be prevalent in almost all sectors and there seems to be little improvements overall in controlling it since […]

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