Study on Business Integrity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
This study is aimed at strengthening integrity in the business sector, especially anti-corruption measures in and for the private sector. Read
I’m Not Interested in Difficulties, I’m Interested in Results
It was always my recommendation that the BPCC’s director must be an expatriate - not just the director, but also the senior managers. This director should lead the bureau for at least the first 3 years in order to train the personnel. Read
Many believe corruption saved Russia
Bureaucrats in Russia see the opportunities of the market economy: opportunities of regulation, influence and corruption. This corruption involves a very strange phenomenon - it is not a problem of state-capture, but of business-capture, where the state is capturing business. Read
Benchmarks, anyone?
Politicians’ rhetoric on the reportedly slow or inefficient work of the Bureau for Preventing and Combating Corruption (BPCC) is arbitrary and subjects the bureau to political pressure. Instead, transparent criteria to evaluate the BPCC need to be developed. Alas, the government does not have an approved strategy or programme on combating corruption yet. Read
The new anti-corruption strategy – just more paper-pushing?
Among Latvia’s anti-corruption bodies there is a culture of “institutional envy”– each institution applies its own elastoplast but the patient isn’t getting any better. The National Strategy for Preventing and Combating Corruption attempts, for the first time, to bring together all the elements of an anti-corruption policy in an organized and understandable form. Read
Of course, politicians hated us
The project showed a problem typical of Argentina — the unwillingness of the media and the parties to talk about their sympathies and financial relations. The success of the party finance reform will depend on journalists and the media owners’ honesty. Read
Punish better, not more severely
Prince Charles visited a site where community service was being done shortly after he himself became the victim of political hooliganism. In that case, a sentencing of the offender to community service would be quite appropriate. Read
Lady Justice without judges 1
It appears that it is simple to ensure that judges work at a high level of morality. We should not pretend that judges don’t know which of their colleagues drink too much and which ones are corrupt. Read
The numbers are correct, but ... 1
Budget requests for the judicial sector in Latvia have always involved the right numbers, but we have been unable to conjure up the right vision of what additional funding would mean to society. We’re prepared to change this situation next year, because a leap in the level of quality in the court system simply will not be possible with the current level of resources. Read
Judging Lady Justice
Even though judges know perfectly well that corruption is unlawful and should be denounced, we do not see much readiness to take active steps when the honesty of a colleague has been called into question. Read