VJochim
My focus is on "Political Corruption"
New - March 21, 2006 - I have been working 23 months in Iraq as a US adviser to the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity (CPI). It is the new anti-corruption agency set up to model the very successful Hong Kong anti-corruption commission. This type of agency is being set up more and more in countries with corruption problems. My primary professional experience was 20 years of corporate internal audit work as a Certified Internal Auditor and Internal Audit Manager or Director.
From January, 2004 to March, 2006 I wrote an internal anti-corruption newsletter for coalition advisors in Iraq based upon Google searches and making editorial comments. I also established and trained a group of 10 internal auditors to support anti-corruption investigations. As a consequence, I learned about various worldwide agencies established to fight corruption and many techniques. This is possible because on the internet, online newspapers exist with english versions of articles that discuss local anti-corruption issues and efforts. One that always pops up is KPK, the anti-corruption commission in Indonesia. However, doing a google search on a simple term like "Haiti Corruption" will turn up not only political accusations, but articles that are great case histories of anti-corruption investigations. For instance, there are several dedicated just to the UN's Oil for Food Scandal.
My observation is that there are many funded programs by foreign aid organizations, NGO's (non-governmental organizations), and trusts, but they focus on "soft" external issues like giving classes to journalists on investigation, or providing seminars and posters to get the public to resist corruption. However, as a working professional, it seems these organizations avoid much spending on instructing and getting government agencies to improve INTERNAL systems to prevent corruption. For instance, in Iraq, they still use a very old, communist based accounting system that lacks many internationally recognized "internal control" procedures that would reduce the ability for corruption to take place. Not one coalition partner or NGO has taken steps to get the Iraqi government to legislate changes to implement internationally accepted accounting systems. As a consequence, the World Bank, the IMF, the UN and other large lenders and funders of new democracies refuse to spend or loan funds to the Iraqis for water projects, business development, etc. We have hordes of attorneys working on legal changes, but none focusing on improvement of the internal accounting systems and management controls as a condition for foreign aid.
Now that I am leaving Iraq, I hope to post more information here in the Political Corruption section. VJochim Vjochim 13:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)