Tag Archives | bribery
Makula logs in Zambia

Caution and optimism in Zambia as forest scheme scales up

The bark of the mukula tree has medicinal properties, the outer wood is prized for furniture and flooring, and the dense core is valuable to Chinese rifle manufacturers. With hundreds or thousands of dollars packed into each plant, mukula forests represent a gold mine for Zambia. But an entrenched web of corruption ensures only powerful […]

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Bribery: ‘redesign public services to cut risk’

Paying bribes to access basic services is rife worldwide: our research shows that globally, it affects the lives of more than one in four people. Bribery that takes place between citizens and officials is illegal and bad for society. It’s an unjust cost for taxpayers to bear, denying people their right to access necessities such […]

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FIFA: how to win back trust

Recently FIFA vice-president Jeffrey Webb admitted publicly that FIFA still had a lot of work to do to repair its battered image despite introducing a slew of organisational reforms. He’s right. FIFA is often seen as synonymous with scandal and not just for football fans. It is the butt of media satire, Twitter wit and […]

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World Cup winners and losers

The 2014 World Cup had it all. Goals galore on the pitch, surprise results, tears and triumphs: a cornucopia of sporting excitement for a worldwide audience of more than a billion, culminating in a deserved win for an exceptional team from Germany. But it also had a series of own goals off the pitch by […]

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Bangladesh factory safety in spotlight

On 24 April 2013 more than a thousand garment workers died when the Rana Plaza commercial building containing several factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed shortly after work began. A few months earlier, on 24 November 2012, more than a hundred workers died when a factory burned down in another part of the city. The owners […]

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Germany is ready to sign UNCAC – at last

In the end, it was an overwhelming majority. Only seven members of parliament voted last Friday (21 February 2014) against toughening up German regulations to stop bribery of parliamentarians. 582 voted for it. The issue is the last major obstacle to Germany’s ratification of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). We now expect Germany […]

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Diagnosis: Healthcare Corruption

Two years ago a doctors’ strike threatened to paralyse Slovak healthcare. Over the previous years, healthcare expenditure in Slovakia had already risen to nine per cent of GDP. And while inefficiencies were widely suspected, the overall message from the strike seemed clear: Slovak healthcare needs more funds. Then at TI Slovakia we calculated that 21 […]

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It’s the Oversight, Stupid

The arrest in China of four GlaxoSmithKline executives on charges of bribery highlights an important reality that companies ignore at their peril. As we have seen in other areas, most notably in financial crime or money laundering, the ways and means of committing a criminal act can and do evolve. A trench-coated operative wearing dark […]

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Sexual favours are not considered corruption in China

The conviction of a high-ranking Chinese official for corruption and the continuing reports of alleged sexual favours as part of the ongoing scandal involving drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in China, exposes gaps in the anti-corruption legislation in the country. The high profile corruption case against China’s former minister of railways Liu Zhijun is being heralded as proof […]

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Egypt in crisis: A look at corruption figures for the last two years

Egyptians are sharply divided over the military’s recent ousting of President Morsi on the back of large-scale popular demonstrations against his rule. They are far more unified, however, in their views on what ails the country. Corruption is at the forefront of those concerns. On 9 July 2013 Transparency International released the Global Corruption Barometer […]

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