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State Capture in South Africa

A recently-released report on State Capture indicates that one family could seemingly succeed in skewing the spending priorities of the government in Pretoria. It’s a crisis induced by weak state institutions and it has enraged many South Africans. South African Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela’s much anticipated report on state capture released on November 3, 2016 […]

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What’s next for Ukraine?

Ukraine said it planned to confiscate $290 million of assets believed to be stolen through corruption in 2016. So far they’ve recovered and returned to state budget just $5,683. While that’s a tiny improvement from $3,813 recovered last year, it shows the struggling country has a long way to go before it can successfully recover […]

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Photo by Derek Gavey/ Flickr

Pharma companies in Slovakia: Uncovering conflicts of interest

Two years ago, the leading German pharmaceutical company, Boehringer Ingelheim, applied to Slovak authorities for its new anti-diabetes drug, Synjardy, to be covered by health insurance.  Drug manufacturers are keen for their medicine to be covered since it would reduce its price and therefore could sell more. Boehringer estimated in its application that within four […]

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Flickr Daniel Mennerich

The FATF report on the USA: More roof than holes on average

You arrive in a new city on a rainy day and check into your top floor hotel room, only to find the roof is leaking. When the receptionist comes to check, he looks up and says, “I don’t see what the problem is, madam. There is clearly more roof than holes on average.” This has […]

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Cleaning up Georgia’s elections

Georgians are getting the message: elections are important and tampering with the process has consequences. This year, there were fewer violations, leading to a cleaner election. It was hard work, however. From when the election process started in June to when people went to the polls on 8 October, Transparency International Georgia was on the […]

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Haiti: disaster prone and ill-equipped to fight corruption

  When Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti on 5 October, the fields where crops were grown were washed away; houses were flattened like cardboard boxes and hundreds of people were killed. The number of dead is now close to 1000 and cholera is once again a fatal danger on our shores. UNICEF says more than 600,000 […]

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Benin’s fight against corruption is only beginning

The Republic of Benin is one of West Africa’s most stable countries. Sandwiched between Nigeria and Togo to the east and west, with Niger and Burkino Faso to the north, Benin has a population of about 10 million, 40 per cent of which lives below the poverty line. It gained independence from France in 1960 […]

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Anti-corruption and happiness go hand in hand

There is a clear link between the level of corruption in a country and people’s attitude to corruption. If you shrug your shoulders and accept there’s little to be done, corruption remains high and you are unhappy. If corruption makes you angry and you do something constructive about it, like pass laws and prosecute the […]

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Does Ukraine merit a new handout?

Yesterday the International Monetary Fund approved a further bailout of more than US$1 billion for Ukraine, a country trying to deal with an aggressive eastern neighbour and a ruling elite compromised by corruption. If the decision to resume payments was based on the normal loan conditions, the outcome would have been an obvious no. Ukrainian […]

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McDonnell walks. Reforms needed

The Justice Department on September 8 announced that it is dropping its corruption case against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court decided to throw out McDonnell’s conviction on the grounds that jurors had been provided an erroneous definition of “official act.” The Court’s unanimous decision […]

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