Corruption Daily

The Daily Corruption | 4 January 2008
One of the largest corruption scandals in Czech history has broken out at the Defence Ministry. Organized crime has reached all the way to the top echelons of the Czech Ministry of Defence. The police are investigating 24 former employees at the ministry, together with their accomplices in the construction business, on corruption charges. The suspects allegedly made sure that overpriced contracts for army bases renovations and other construction and maintenance work ended in the right hands. In return, they were paid large under-the-table commissions. The damage to the defence budget is still under investigation but the Czech Army spends an annual 2.5 billion crowns, or over 140 million US dollars, on these types of contracts.
The current drive against systematic corruption, spearheaded by the Anti- Corruption Commission (ACC), has received wholehearted support from the general people. The media, civil society, TIB, and other organisations are working tirelessly to make corruption a difficult undertaking for the practitioners. Public procurement through government contracts has always been the primary source of corruption. Some experts suggest that, in government procurement and work tender, only 15% of the money reaches its intended destination as 85% is siphoned away through systematic leakages.
A year after helping the new government draft its official agenda following its belated formation in January 2007, Estat.cz, a civic group for increased government effectiveness, issued its annual report card, evaluating the governments first year in power. According to Estat.czs report, the government is seriously lagging behind in improving transparency in the public sector, an area in which its success rate reached only 25 percent. On its agenda, the government had promised to increase the accountability of public officials by increasing the publics access to all nonclassified information. The fight against corruption is one of the governments main priorities, the agenda states.
State-run Gas Authority of India Ltd. says it will change tender documents to ensure transparency in the bidding process. The company said it would include an integrity pact, a tool Transparency International had designed to prevent corruption in public procurement. India's private oil and gas companies have complained that state-run companies have not ensured transparency in their tender documents.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday pressed charges against detained former premiere and Awami League (AL) chief Sheikh Hasina and seven others in connection with Tk 3 crore graft case during the setting up of 100MW barge-mount power plant in Khulna. The ACC yesterday also approved the filing of first information report (FIR) against eight persons including former state minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, former health minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and former Awami League (AL) lawmaker Mirza Azam on charges of amassing illegal wealth and concealing information of their wealth.
Just days ago the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) served Zuma notice that he would be charged with corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering. He faces 16 charges, including the implication that he was involved in soliciting a bribe through his jailed financial adviser Schabir Shaik from a French arms company that won a slice of the multibillion-rand arms deal. Zumas enraged allies, through Cosatus KwaZulu-Natal leader Zet Luzipho, have threatened that blood will be spilt. The statement was later withdrawn, but the point had been made.
The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau here filed a chargesheet against six persons in connection with the irregularities detected in the construction of the Nellipuzha bridge across the Kunthipuzha in Mannarkkad which caused a loss of Rs 1.20 crore to the exchequer. Within four months of the commissioning of the bridge, a two-metre hole was detected on the main slab near the abutment. A few months later, another hole was detected on another slab. The bridge was weak due to the inadequate quantity of cement and steel used in it and therefore it had to be demolished. A new bridge was constructed, causing a loss of Rs 12,088,000 to the State Government.
The call for an investigation into the Health Departments pharmaceutical board handling of medical drugs has heightened this week. A medical insider, on condition of anonymity, alleged that fraudulent tenders for medical drugs and mosquito nets were being targeted as a major part of the alleged corruption in the Health Department. Millions of kina are being wasted and stolen through corruption and slackness at the high levels of the Health Department, the insider said. These corrupt practices involved the Health Departments hierarchy.
The Albanian government has embraced an anti-corruption strategy that will be implemented through 2013 to fight rampant corruption. The problem in the country is so pervasive, the latest European Commission report on Albania describes it as a social phenomenon. Ending corruption is one of the most important conditions for Albania to receive an invitation to join NATO during the Alliances meeting in Bucharest this spring. Officials are also speaking out about corrupt practices. President Bamir Topi shocked the public when he declared on December 4th 2007 that Albanian officials think day and night about how to steal from the true land owners.
Former energy secretary Toufiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury was on Wednesday sent to jail after he surrendered in court in the Khulna power plant 'bribery' case. Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge M Azizul Haque issued the order after Toufiq, escorted by his counsels, had appeared in the court and sought bail. He is facing charges of corruption along with seven others, including the imprisoned former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, also the Awami League president, for allegedly taking Tk 3 crore in kickbacks from officials of three power companies.
A supervisor of Brunei Shell Petroleum Company Sdn Bhd was brought before the Magistrate's Court in the capital to face 20 charges for contravening Section 6(a) of the prevention of Corruption Act (Chapter 131) read with Section 7(1) of the same act. Investigation conducted by the Anti Corruption Bureau revealed that between May 2006 and January 2008, the accused accepted some $10,000 from a contract manager and a project manager of a company as an inducement or reward for showing favourable consideration relating to a tender project awarded by BSP to the said company.
In one of the worst-ever compromises since the LDF Government came to power, the Local Self - Government Department has entered into an agreement with contractors to improve the basic infrastructure, violating all accepted norms. During the Ninth Five-Year Plan, a model for beneficiary committee-based execution of road works was mooted by the Peoples Plan campaign in 1997. This was aimed at defeating the politician-contractor- engineer nexus under the centralised system. According to reliable official information, the contractors and engineers collude and use only 60 percent of the permissible bitumen and divert the rest to the black market. This is the kickback shared by the cartel.
Corruption and ineffective public institutions are still undermining good governance in the country, a report by the African Peer Review Mechanism National Commission has said. The World Bank (2005) estimates that Uganda loses about $300m (sh510b) per year through corruption and procurement malpractices, the 592-pages report notes. It reckons that the Government would save sh30b annually by eliminating losses from corruption in public procurement alone. Citing the 2005 Auditor Generals Report, it estimates that 20% of the value of public procurement was lost through corruption, prompted by weak public procurement laws, adding that procurement accounts for 70% of public expenditure.
Mpumalanga's former director general Advocate Stanley Soko is expected tp appear in court on Thursday when the province's largest corruption trial resumes. Soko and axed Mpumalanga Economic Empowerment Corporation (MEEC) chief executive Ernest Khosa are scheduled to appear in Nelspruit's Regional Court for allegedly forcing government contractors to meet them in shady car parks and dark streets to pay massive cash bribes. Both men were fired from their jobs when the scandal broke, and have been charged with corruption, fraud, and contravention of both the Public Service Management Act and the Organised Crime Act.
"Make money, but not at any price!" Shareholders of the German industrial giant Siemens were impressed Thursday by strong profits but called for an end to corruption within the group. Before almost 10,000 investors, Daniela Bergdolt, from the DSW group of small investors, judged that "the reputation built by Siemens for 160 years has been reduced to ashes." Albrecht Kinkelin, a 64-year-old investor from Munich, told AFP however that "corruption in the economy is not exceptional," and estimated that "the group's image is certainly damaged, but not forever." All the same, he felt Siemens ought to have "acted more frankly."
Slovak Defence Minister Frantisek Kasicky quit on Friday over mismanaged procurement tenders that could have cost the state tens of millions of dollars. Prime Minister Robert Fico said he had accepted the resignation. Slovak media have reported that defence ministry officials overstated the value of several tenders for services such as maintenance or translations. One of the largest mismanaged tenders was a winter maintenance contract (not yet awarded), which the ministry originally listed as worth 1.5 billion crowns ($65.13 million). The ministry later publicly confirmed the contract was really only worth around 140 million crowns.
Yemen has assured its commitment to good governance in order to facilitate development. This commitment was launched at the beginning of 2005 at the international conference held in Jordon, said Minister of Justice Dr Ghazi Shaif alAghbari at a regional conference concerned with supporting the UN convention for fighting corruption in the Arab World. Corruption represents the biggest danger to the national economy as it results in damaging societal values and laws and causes losses to the country and its citizens, said al-Aghbari. Yemen signed the UN Convention to Fight Corruption in 2003 and announced its commitment before the global community to increase efforts and activities in investigating and prosecuting corruption.
The head of Nigeria's anti-corruption unit has reportedly been ordered to go on yearlong study leave, in an apparent attempt to sideline him. Nuhu Ribadu, who has spearheaded Nigeria's attempts to combat financial crime, is involved in the prosecution of seven former state governors. Observers say that if he is removed from his post, it will be a blow to President Umaru Yar'Adua's credibility. The president came to power in May promising to fight rampant corruption.
In recent months the Karnataka state capital has been caught in the turbulence of politics - but the city that aspires to lead India into the future has bigger worries it seems - worries over the functioning of basic facilities like hospitals. It turns out that mothers of newborn babies here have to face the worst kind of corruption in government hospitals. As TIMES NOW found out new mothers who are already in a tender physical condition are made to undergo mental agony as well, having to pay a price to see their own little babies.
Himachal Pradesh government had decided to order high level probe into the controversial allotment of tenders and supply orders awarded by state Public Works (PWD) and Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Departments during previous congress regime resulting in huge loss to the state exchequer. Official sources told this reporter here today that Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal had already handed over the investigation of rupees 75 crores Bamsan drinking water supply scheme falling in his home constituency to state Vigilance Bureau. Official of the Bureau had already reached Hamirpur to seize the records of IPH department. The initial cost of this scheme was rupees 35 crore only.
The Commission for Investigation of the Abuse Authority (CIAA) Friday, requested department heads and other government officials to expedite monitoring mechanism on corruption and irregularities prevalent in all departments and organizations. The CIAA cited the major barriers to controlling corruption and effective implementation of the policies as delayed correspondence, lacking effective monitoring on irregularities and mal-appropriation, inattention towards the issues, referring to the upper level for responses and directions on issues.
After performing dismally in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections, graft allegations on Jammu and Kashmir Education Minister Peerzada Mohammed Sayeed has doubled the worries of Congress strategists. Also, with Assembly elections expected in October, bribery accusation on Sayeed, who also happens to be the state president of the Congress, spells trouble for Congress Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. Although Sayeed has resigned as the minister and party president, Azads pledge to make the society corruption-free has begun to ring increasingly hollow. Shoaib Lone, an Independent MLA from Sangrama, accused Sayeed of receiving Rs 40,000 as bribe from him for granting permission to his sister for opening an elementary teachers training institute.
The Daily Corruption | 7 February 2008
Tanzania's Prime Minister Edward Lowassa told parliament Thursday he had tendered his resignation to the president after being implicated in a corruption scandal over an energy deal. The premier's decision came after a report was submitted to parliament over a deal signed between the government and the Texas-based firm Richmond for emergency power supply. According to a probe into the contract, the prime minister as well as two other government ministers and several other officials allegedly meddled in the tender to favour the US company. According to the report, the deal contravened laws and rules on procurement and costs the country 140,000 dollars a day.
After almost a year the forensic investigation into various allegations of fraud, corruption and other irregularities at the Local Municipality of Madibeng is complete and 26 of these are being investigated further by the Directorate of Special Investigations of the National Prosecuting Authority. Mr. Phillemon Mapulane, Municipal Manager of the Local Municipality of Madibeng, said that the primary reason for the institution of the investigation was due to several allegations received from different sources. The allegations implicated both officials (most at senior level), councillors and outside parties. According to Mapulane this was coupled with prima facie evidence of favouritism towards friends and other related parties with regard to the manipulations of the procurement process and disregard of departmental recommendations by the awarding body.
Party men now demand punishment of former BNP lawmaker Shahidul Islam Master for amassing illegal wealth and misappropriating relief goods. Shahidul, elected from Jhenidah-3 constituency (Moheshpur) in last parliamentary polls, is on the list of 80 corruption suspects announced by the National Committee Against Corruption. He faces seven cases including five for extortion and two for misappropriation of relief goods. Talking to this correspondent, several leaders of BNP and its youth and student fronts accused Shahidul of amassing crores of taka through tender manipulation, extortion and other illegal means and tarnishing the image of the party.
Executives at Germany's main warship-building company are being investigated over claims that they offered kickbacks in Angola for an order, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday. No ship order was actually placed, but a corruption inquiry was under way against ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) staff involved in the tender, Spiegel said, adding that TKMS offices had been searched by police in Hamburg and Essen on December 19. TKMS had tendered to supply a corvette and three coastal patrol boats worth 750 million euros (1.1 billion dollars) to Angola under a deal that had been initiated by the Angolan military with a letter of intent on February 22, 2006.
Directors of the largest construction companies, which were detained on Tuesday, along with several other persons, on suspicion of corruption and construction crime, are on pretrial release after the State Attorneys request to sentence them with one-month imprisonment was denied. According to media headlines, this investigation, related to malversations of the construction lobby started several months ago and is based on suspicions of money laundering and transferring cash funds to private accounts, continues. The tender for construction of 100-meter-high control tower at the Ljubljana Airport Jo e Pu nik, which was the primary motif for arrest, was cancelled and the Agency for Air Traffic Control will publish a new tender.
The staggering extent of corruption in the procurement department of Telecom Namibia about 10 years ago started emerging more fully as the Telecom scrap-copper corruption trial continued in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday. Ivan Ganes, who as Telecom Namibia's Manager: Procurement was in charge of that department at the parastatal between April 1995 and early 2001, readily admitted in testimony given before Judge Collins Parker yesterday that he received millions of rand in "commissions", which were in fact bribes, over the last five years of his employment at the company. Ganes is a key witness for the prosecution.
The energy minister delayed a raid on the state-owned pipeline company BOTA 's offices and forced the retirement of officials involved in a corruption case involving the company's officials in the tender for the scheduled building of a natural gas depot under the Salt Lake in central Anatolia, according to an indictment prepared by an Ankara prosecutor. Prosecutor Mehmet Tamz briefed Energy Minister Hilmi Gler on the matter and was asked to delay the operation, the indictment said. The minister suspended all BOTA officials involved and forced some to resign. The indictment also includes film recordings of officials taking bribes from contractors who wanted to win the tender.
The Daily Corruption | 7 22ebruary 2008
Two major bribery scandals brought to light yesterday by Turkish newspapers that cited several bureaucrats and businessmen involve allegations of corruption in public institutions and might signal that corruption and bribery, which have been decreasing since 2002 according to domestic and international reports, might be making a comeback. According to a 2006 World Bank report on corruption that covers the years 2002 to 2005, corruption in Turkey had decreased during that time period as a result of reforms carried out to improve the business environment. Turkish companies reported a lower number of bribery incidents in public tenders than some EU member countries, but recent events suggest that corruption in public agencies could be slowly heading back to pre-2002 levels.
The African National Congress has called for the sacking of a senior council official who blew the whistle on alleged abuse of power and corruption in a R1-billion 2010 stadium project. The apparent attempt at a cover-up follows a damning report by independent attorneys on the alleged corruption, which was leaked to the Mail & Guardian. Central to the saga is the Mbombela municipal manager, Jacob Dladla, who was investigated by the local council after being accused of wide-ranging misconduct in relation to 2010 contracts.
Police investigating a corruption case involving a debt-stricken Defense Ministry official believe he received 3 million yen in bribes on top of the 2 million yen originally thought. Makoto Sogabe, 55, is under arrest for accepting a 2 million yen bribe from Yasuo Yamanaka, 43, president of the Yamanaka Kensetsu construction firm in Bihoro, Hokkaido. In return, Sogabe informed Yamanaka of a confidential reserve price in a tender for a ministry contract on the construction of a storage facility at a Ground SelfDefense Force base in Hokkaido in March 2006. Sometime around 2006, Sogabe, who was a deputy division chief at a local branch of the ministry in Obihiro, Hokkaido, also asked Yamanaka to lend him about 3 million yen.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has ordered an internal audit at the party's in-house investment firm, which is controlled by allies of South African President Thabo Mbeki, the Sunday Times reported. The probe of Chancellor House Holdings comes some two months after Jacob Zuma defeated Mbeki for the ANC leadership in a bitter contest that was marked by allegations on both sides of dirty tricks, vote-buying and political smear campaigns. It will include an audit of black empowerment deals and tenders won by the firm and is also expected to look at the roles played by Mbeki, Deputy President Phumzile MlamboNgcuka and ex-ANC treasurer-general Mendi Msimang, the newspaper said.
The Daily Corruption | 4 March 2008
Who was manipulating the bidding in a tender for the construction of a hall in Karlovy Vary, and why? Anti-corruption Unit has been trying to unravel these questions for over a year. Now, new information has been made available, pointing to possible links between the company that was running the selection procedure (also known as "the Czech bidding lottery"), and the company that won the tender. Ji Pilsk, an agent with Stormen, the company hired by Karlovy Vary to organize the bidding, used to work for Tender Group Plus. That company is under suspicion of having manipulated selection procedures in the past, and the court case is currently on trial.
Nine suspects, including Edirne Mayor Hamdi Sedefi, were arrested by a court Monday for alleged corruption in tenders and for organized crime, while seven others, including the son of former President Turgut zal, Ahmet zal, were released pending trial. All suspects were questioned by the Edirne prosecutor's office. zal, speaking to reporters after his release, said he trusted the Turkish judiciary, dismissing claims that he was involved in corruption. The suspects face charges of corrupting tenders, accepting bribes and forming a criminal organization.
Detectives are investigating allegations of corruption in collapsed Tube firm Metronet, the Standard reveals today. Police have been called in after a six-figure contract for complex electrical work was given to a firm that specialises in unblocking drains. An Evening Standard investigation has uncovered serious concerns over how 850,000 worth of work to refurbish electrical fittings and fire alarms at Oxford Circus station was awarded. A contract was given by Metronet to Lanes Group, which has no industry certification for electrical work.
South Africa's 2010 World Cup soccer tournament was a prime target for corruption, editors were told in Johannesburg on Friday. "There was a real fear that South Africa, in the staging of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, could look bad in the eyes of the world because of the dangers of corruption," said Professor Danny Titus, chairperson of the SA branch of Transparency International. "There is no national picture of what tender fraud looks like in South Africa...what the amounts are and the type of tenders involved, " he said. Corruption in Africa 'cost $150bn'
IT must be counted among the most bizarre revelations in Nigeria political history that a little more than $13billion went down the drains in one of the most imponderable contracting scandals recorded anywhere involving a government. The Nigerian House of Representatives, particularly the honourable Ndidi Elumelu and his colleagues in the House Committee on Power have conducted a methodical probe of the power sector, and have unravelled a profound and unimaginable depth of sleaze in the contract regime of the Nigeria Integrated Power Project initiated by the Olusegun Obasanjo government. From the oral and documentary evidence, it has been clearly established that the total expenditure in the power sector during the period was $13.28bn.
The Daily Corruption | 17 April 2008
The Office of Fair Trading has today formally accused 112 construction firms in England of participating in "bid rigging", in its biggest investigation of cartel activity to date. Some of the biggest names in construction in the UK including Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Connaught, Interserve and Kier have been accused of ripping off the public sector to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. They were today issued with a "statement of objections" from the OFT, alleging that they participated in cartel-type activity in bidding for thousands of public sector construction contracts, worth 3 billion, including tenders for schools, universities and hospitals. Multi-million pound fines are expected to arise from the investigation, which began in 2004.
The fourth penal section of the Milan tribunal has sentenced former Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia to three years in prison, charged with corruption and embezzlement in relation to the alleged bribes accepted when he was head doctor at the Milan Polyclinic. It is a ruling going beyond the request made by state attorneys Eugenio Fusco and Maurizio Romanelli, who had asked for 2 years and nine months. Sirchia had been accused of taking bribes from multinationals specialized in healthcare products in exchange for favouring them in tenders.
An investigation into tenders called by the National Road Infrastructure Fund (NRIF) found flaws in two public procurements, the Transport Ministry said on April 18. The probe, carried out at the request of Transport Minister Petar Moutafchiev by the ministrys internal audit department, detected breaches in tenders that were to be financed with funds from the European Union's Operational Programme Transport. The Transport Ministry, in its capacity as the administrator of funds under the transport operational programme, decided against financing these projects and advised NRIF to consider its further actions carefully.
German companies did not register any improvement in the traditional weak points of Bulgarias business environment: corruption, the lack of transparency in public procurements, as well as the poor state of the countrys infrastructure. These were the findings of a survey, published on April 9, carried out by German-Bulgarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GBCIC). The survey results show that, in general, the German investors in Bulgaria are not satisfied with the framework conditions in the country. They found that the effectiveness of local administration, access to funding and the conditions for scientific work were unsatisfactory - all marked with 3.6, while legal security and public procurement transparency received a grade of 3.8. Even worse was the evaluation for public infrastructure and the fight against organised crime (4.1).
The head of department for health and social development in Limpopo, Dr Jabu Dlamini, almost burst into tears yesterday when she was grilled by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) about questionable transactions. Dlamini had no answers when Scopa aked her about allegations of fronting and malpractices in the tendering process. This was after Dlamini and her team of professionals were unable to give answers about the expenditure on the departments building that was built in the 2006/2007 financial year. It also wanted an explanation about allegations that a multimillion-rand food parcel supply tender was awarded to seven companies, although only one invoice was submitted.
The steps Yemen has taken in the fight against corruption were more than noticeable, acting as an indicator that the president and the Yemeni government are working together to take measures that aim at reducing corruption and limiting the influence of corrupt officials in government circles. Since 2004, Yemen has revised a large number of legislation to support the anti-corruption movement, with the help of international donors, Yemen was able to bring a revised procurement law into effect, forming a committee to combating corruption, undertaking several awareness and publicity campaigns against corruption, and restricting and empowering the Central Organization for Control and Audit. However, spectators still believe that there is along way to go for Yemen is corruption will be illuminated.
In the absence of a proper system of checks and balances, corruption has firmly gripped the funding of civic projects under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Interestingly, the tenders floated for the road works under the JNNURM have some strange conditions which read more like an open demand for kickbacks that contractors should provide the PMC's engineers and consultants with things like Tavera cars, laptops, tea-cups, laptops, water purifiers and chairs! Commenting on this, a contractor who requested anonymity said, "Now it is an open secret that not a single tender in the municipal corporation is passed without paying kickbacks. There should be some checks on those who approve tenders and those who move files from table to table."
The Colombian government is promising transparency in the way it conducts water tenders. It could prove vital in encouraging private sector investment. Between 1996 and 2003, the Colombian government spent COP11.7 trillion ($6.47 billion at current exchange rates) to boost the number of citizens with access to water and sewerage provision. The government is now admitting that a large part of that money was wasted on unneeded works and bribes.
The Daily Corruption | 2 May 2008
Police questioned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for 90 minutes under caution that he may face charges. Olmert has been questioned in recent years about a number of alleged crimes, including steering government contracts to friends and making illegal patronage appointments. None of the investigations have resulted in charges as of yet. The secretive nature of the questioning, the news that Olmert had been given just 48 hours warning and the fact that the interrogation was "under caution" led media to speculate that police may be close to breaking one of the cases.
The government has awarded a R4.7m a year tender to clean dirty hospital linen from an Eastern Cape hospital to a man who does not have washing machines, the Sunday Times has reported. When all the laundry items were not being returned to the Cecilia Makiwane hospital, the reason became obvious. The businessman who won the contract employed people to scrub bloodied sheets in tubs of cold water, with their bare hands, the Sunday Times said. A member of a delegation that visited the "laundry" found that conditions there were "shocking," and there was no trace of any washing powder.
Two allied groups of accountants, bishops and businessmen announced on Wednesday that they have banded together to intensify the monitoring of state procurement and review government tenders. The groups include the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (Picpa) and Bishops-Business Conference for Human Development (BBC), a member of the Coalition Against Corruption (CAC). Done through a signing of a memorandum of agreement last Monday, Picpa's and BBC's initiative comes in the wake of the CAC's launch of its "Catching the Big Fish" campaign.
Technical officers who process government tender documents have been blamed for fuelling corruption, nepotism and favoritism. Addressing a kgotla meeting in Mmopane in the Kweneng District, the MP for Kweneng South East, MP Mmoloki Raletobana, said some officers, especially foreigners had a tendency of releasing secret information about government projects to certain companies they favour to help them to win tenders. He said excluding politicians from the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board was not a solution but would rather give them chance to continue awarding tenders to their friends.
The Supreme National Authority for Combating Corruption (SNACC) announced last week that it is finishing investigations on six corruption cases, dysfunctions and financial violations of about YR 20 billion, said Dr. Bilqis Abu Usbaa in a recent report issued by SNACC. This report comes every three months and is submitted to the president and the Parliament as a disclosure of these cases. These cases are among 141 claims that SNACC received since the authoritys establishment last year. The authority received 78 of these claims in the period from January to the end of March 2008. Regarding the cases that are computable with corruption, the report confirmed that six of them are about to finish, while the others are still under investigation and follow up.
The much publicized Sri Lanka Cricket tender to build 40 new concrete strips for schools around the country ran into deeper controversy on Thursday when the Sports Ministry representative who attended the meeting at Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) headquarters to evaluate the tender bids, ordered everything cancelled and asked SLC officials call for fresh bids as they have failed to follow the correct procedures. We had to temporarily halt the tender process due to a few problems about the tender. We will be calling for fresh bids and will award it shortly said SLC Chief Executive Duleep Mendis yesterday. Mendis denied to elaborate further on the matter.
Members of parliament were stunned by a report on the endemic nature of corruption in the department of correctional services, detailing cases of tender rigging, medical aid fraud and petrol card abuse. The extent of the graft prompted outspoken committee chairperson Dennis Bloem (ANC) to say corruption "seems to be part and parcel of the uniform of Correctional Services". "But more serious in this investigation is that the (department's) headquarters are now under investigation - it's not (only) the soldiers. This makes it more serious,". He was reacting to one of the report's findings that 27 officials faced disciplinary hearings for undisclosed business interests, some involving contracts with the department. They include officials above the rank of director.
Corruption in Bosnian privatisation deals over the past year could be worth more than 250,000, an anti-corruption watchdog claims. Preliminary findings from the first phase of the monitoring, which Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, is doing in cooperation with the Open Society Fund BiH, indicates an extremely high risk level of corruption within privatisation deals mainly because of a lack of transparency in all phases, Boris Divjak, the director of Transparency International. Based on the findings so far, both Bosnian entities are violating the many basic principles for public procurement as well as concessions and privatisation deals. As a result, Transparency International BiH has launched criminal proceedings with local courts against governments of both Bosnian entities, Divjak said.
The Daily Corruption | 13 June 2008
The head of the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) has admitted that tender procedures were flouted on multi-billion contracts awarded to four companies to modernise the home affairs identification systems. Sita Chief Executive Officer Llewellyn Jones told the National Assembly's portfolio committee on home affairs on Thursday that proper procedures were not adhered to when combined contracts worth more than R3,4-billion were given to the IT firms. The whole saga was triggered by the R1,8-billion contract that was awarded two years ago to GijimaAST, and the costs have since escalated to more than R2,4-billion.
One of Turkey's leading companies has denied corruption charges relating to its participation in tenders on building compressor stations in the Hanak, orum and Sivas regions. According to Vatan newspaper's June 10 headline, company Siemens Sanayi ve Ticaret allegedly leaned on some officials to make sure its products were used in the Petroleum Pipeline Corporation, or BOTA , tenders in 2005-2006. The daily implied that Siemens had offered a bribe worth 57 million euros to high-level Turkish officials.
Yemen, one of the worlds poorest countries, has made strides in addressing rampant corruption, but challenges remain, a top World Bank official said. Emmanuel Mbi, the World Banks director of central Middle Eastern and North Africa affairs, said Yemen had already taken legal action against a number of government officials regarding the awarding of contracts. Seven cases are expected to be put before the courts, he said. The good thing is that Yemen is on the right track, said Mr Mbi. Corruption is considered one of the major problems in Yemen today, with bribe taking considered a way of life in a country where 42 per cent of the population live in poverty. Abuse of government authority and embezzlement are also widespread.
The Daily Corruption | 4 July 2008
Turkish gendarmes arrested member of the Kaynaklar municipality in Buca District of Izmir Region of Turkey from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Mustafa Karagulmez. APA quotes the Turkish news agencies as saying that 38 persons, including the municipality chief were arrested during the operations held by 400 gendarmes on Friday. The arrests were instructed by the Izmir Prosecutors Office, which accused Karagulmez in corruption, bribe, weapon smuggling, illegal tender actions and abuse its power. Files and other documents related to the municipal tenders were confiscated by the gendarmes.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Eastern Cape has described a leaked report on corruption in the Eastern Cape government as scandalous and damning. According to the report, purported to be the Pillay Report commissioned by the Eastern Cape Premier Nosimo Balindlela, politicians' families benefited from state funded loans and the awarding of tenders. DA Eastern Cape Chief Whip, Bobby Stevenson, says the party wants the report to be thoroughly dealt with to show there's no room for go-slows and cover ups. "The step that the DA is proposing is that the report is to be referred immediately to the joint portfolio committees of finance and the premier's office so that the report can be interrogated; use its powers to summons witnesses and get people to give evidence. the report is politically explosive, damning and we need to get to the truth."
A team of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators on Thursday conducted a search in two locations in the House of Representatives (DPR) complex in south Jakarta in connection with the suspected involvement of legislator Bulyan Royan in a bribery case. In their effort to collect more evidence against Royan, the KPK search team targeted the quarters of the secretariat of the House`s Commission V of which he was a member, and the legislator`s private office. Royan, a representative of the Star Reform Party (PBR), was arrested last June 30 after he had collected an amount of money from a businessman who had won a tender for the supply of patrol boats for the Transportation Ministry.
The German economics magazine WirtschaftsWoche published Saturday an article on Bulgaria stating that anyone intending to do business there must be prepared to face the rampant corruption. According to the magazine, all German companies heading to invest in Bulgaria were of the need to pay bribes, and the likelihood to come across pre-determined tenders and competition with very good connections. WirtschaftsWoche gives as an example the case of the German company Hamburg Port Consulting, which was thrown out of the competition for the concession of the Danube Port of Lom even though its bid was EUR 18 M higher than that of the favorite Nove Holding, owned by the Bulgarian tycoon Vasil Bozhkov.
A senior official from Macedonia's opposition party has been released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of corruption, news reaching here from Skopje reported on Friday. Zoran Zaev, vice-president of the Social Democrats, was arrested on Thursday along with four other people on suspicion of abuse of office in a tender for a local shopping mall in Strumica where he serves as its major.
Prosecutions for several high-profile corruption scandals should be expedited so trials could begin soon, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said at a meeting of the Central Steering Anti-Corruption Committee Friday. The high-profile cases are a US$5.3 million bank swindle and an electronic meter tendering scandal at the Ho Chi Minh City Electric Power Company. Dung told agencies concerned to also accelerate the investigations of 13 major corruption cases implicating many state officials.
The senior project manager at the heart of corruption allegations over City of Port Phillip contracts was convicted for serious fraud four years ago. Further revelations around Port Phillip's cash-for-contracts controversy emerged yesterday as the State Government confirmed that Victoria's Ombudsman, George Brouwer, had launched an "own motion" inquiry. Police are now also investigating. The Ombudsman's inquiry will also take over an existing Government inquiry into the council's failure to tender about $600,000 in work granted to a controversial change consultant, Caroline Shahbaz.
Grass-roots level activists of Magura BNP have formally raised their voices against alleged misdeeds by district leaders during the 4-party alliance rule. They bitterly crticised the then district leadership for tender manipulation during the five years and amassing wealth at the cost of the party. At a special meeting Saturday evening, many of the grass-roots leaders and activists alleged that during the alliance rule, front ranking leaders had formed a syndicate styled 'negotiation committee' that manipulated tenders in different government departments, which seriously tarnished the image of BNP. According to them, some district leaders amassed several crores of taka through tender manipulation, but the party is now facing serious financial crisis.
The Daily Corruption | 8 August 2008
Despite his earlier defiant challenge to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigerian Tribune can reveal that former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, reportedly made frantic but futile efforts to stave off his arrest by the commissions operatives in the early hours of Thursday. The commission is also almost certain that he would appear today before a Federal High Court in Lagos. The PDP chieftain was reportedly arrested over an alleged N85 billion contract scandal in the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) when he was the chairman of the board, which served as the tenders board.
The Daily Corruption | 12 September 2008
Albanias newly appointed Minister of Health, Anila Godo, has accused her predecessor of buying 26 million of expired and stock medicines. Godo on Friday said flagrant corruption had been uncovered with regard to tenders for the acquisition of drugs, bringing the health system to its knees. A few days ago, the Mother Theresa University Hospital in Tirana suspended surgical operations, apart from emergencies, citing the lack of basic items such as anesthetics. The new minister told the Health Commission in Albanias parliament that she had asked the office of Internal Auditing in the Ministry of Finance and the High State Auditing Office to probe the tenders of the ministry and main hospitals.
A task force of bureaucrats, politicians and private sector participants is jointly dissecting corrupt practices in the construction sector. The task force has identified five main stages of corruption: planning and design, bidding, evaluation and implementation. Suggestions on curbing measures have been made, said a member of the committee formed on a cabinet directive. The report is expected to be presented to the cabinet soon. At the bidding stage, when companies bid for projects, a lot of established nexus can be seen, stated the report. The team pointed out collusion and rigging among bidders to push up the prices or ensure a shared bid.
Ombudsmen from the East African Community on Thursday started a three-day meeting in Kigali, the Rwandan capital to devise comprehensive and common strategy aimed at fighting corruption and injustices in different public institutions. The regional meeting of anti-graft institutional heads from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, under their umbrella organization of the East African Association of Anti-corruption Authorities (EAAAA), was presided over by the Rwandan Prime Minister Bernard Makuza. The meeting underway at the Novotel Hotel in Kigali comes at a time when corruption is said to be increasing in almost all the regional states with several government officials cited in numerous financial scams including tenders.
The resignation of the Secretary, Ministry of Finance, a.k.a. the Treasury Secretary, this week, is quite historic in the sense that it is the first time since Independence sixty years ago, that a public servant of such rank has quit office following a very serious reprimand on allegation of corruption. The Supreme Court judgement on the Lanka Marine Services case has received wide coverage since the order was delivered on finding the Treasury Secretary, Dr. P.B. Jayasundera, guilty of connivance in awarding a Government tender to a private company. The judgement, to say the least, was a damning critique of the Secretary's official conduct. One must give the public spirited citizens who painstakingly raked out the muck from this sordid rip-off of the people's assets, credit for their actions.
The Diyarbak r 7th Army Corps Military Prosecutor's Office has expanded an investigation into allegations of corruption in tenders held by the Defense Ministry's Diyarbak r Construction Real Estate NATO ENF Regional Office to include the Diyarbak r Internal Supply Services Directorate. Diyarbak r Construction Real Estate NATO ENF commander Col. M.R. and branch head Maj. S.E. have been taken into custody as part of the investigation. The prosecution accuses the suspects of rigging tenders to award projects to only a specific group of contractors for the maintenance and repair of military facilities in Diyarbak r, rnak, Batman, Urfa and Mardin for the year 2008.
Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International says the African Union and regional institutions must do more to encourage good governance in East Africa. Many countries, including Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda are at or near the bottom of the organization's latest Corruption Perception Index released on Tuesday. VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu has more from our East Africa Bureau in Nairobi. Calling the results of the survey for East and Horn of African countries "grim," Transparency International's executive director in Kenya, Job Ogonda says the time has come for the African Union and the East African Community to create anti-corruption bodies, which are solely accountable to the people and have the power to curb abuses.
A voice recording discovered in Ankara allegedly features the voice of the mayor of the district of ankaya, known as a stronghold of the Republican Peoples Party (CHP), confessing to having bribed CHP members on the municipal council, as well as having forced companies hoping to compete in municipal tenders to pay bribes. According to a story printed in various newspapers across the country yesterday, a voice allegedly belonging to ankaya Mayor Muzaffer Ery lmaz says in the recording that the mayor cant find the time to work because he is busy bribing CHP members of the municipal council.
The Daily Corruption | 8 October 2008
Recently in the UAE there have been several reports in the media of senior personnel in a number of companies who are being investigated for corruption or worse. No doubt this being part of the government's continuing initiative and resolve to fight corruption and punish those that are guilty of it. The World Bank has estimated that bribery costs the world approximately US $1 trillion each year. Such a sum can only adversely affect the economic growth of developing countries, which can ill afford such cost.
Thirty people, including the deputy head of a health unit, have been taken into custody charged with tender corruption in the central Eskisehir province of Turkey, the state-run Anatolian Agency reported. (UPDATED) Thirty people, including the deputy general manager of the Basic Health Services section of the Health Ministry, Seraceddin Com, have been taken into custody on charges related to tender corruption, TV channels reported.
The Daily Corruption | 8 16ctober 2008
ALL Pakistan Water Supply Users (APWSU) Chairman Engineer Noor Muhammad Rehmani has pointed out several flaws in two government tenders invited for development projects. Rehmani said the engineers employed by the government were corrupt, adding that the government had not been able to trace their malpractices due to lack of supervision and monitoring of tenders. The project director rejected the bids of all the companies on the pretext that they were incapable of supplying digital water meters, he said, adding that the PD secretly finalised a deal with one of the bidders to get 6,000 mechanical water meters at the rate of 65 Euro per meter. Another company objected to the deal and expressed its interest in providing the same model of mechanical water meters at a saving of Rs 20 million.
The police yesterday came to the head office of state-owned oil company PT Pertamina and confiscated documents linked with an alleged corruption case involving Zatapi crude oil imports. The case began February last year when Pertamina bought 600.000 barrels of Zatapi crude oil from PT Gold Manor International Ltd (Singapore). Corruption allegations emerged because no due diligence was carried prior to the purchase of the Zatapi crude. The oil procurement contract amounted to US$ 54 million. The Development and Finance Supervisory Board (BPKP) is still calculating the financial loss incurred by the state.
A case of corruption has been opened against Robert Gumede, the chairperson of listed information technology company GijimaAST. Gumede, who recently donated R10-million to the ANC during a fundraising dinner in Sandton, vehemently denies bribing Telkom officials and said he was not aware of the police's probe against him. The Mail & Guardian has established that the South African Police Service's commercial branch in Johannesburg is actively pursuing the corruption charge against Gumede, relating to the award of a R600-million tender by Telkom to his Gijima Afrika Smart Technologies (GAST) in 2002.
OUTGOING president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting yesterday called for a wide range of reforms in the government and Barisan Nasional. Unless there were changes, there was no more future for the coalition, he said in an hour-long speech that was seen as his most hard-hitting and frank. He touched on seven core issues which contributed to BN losing the support of the Chinese electorate and that of the other communities in the March 8 general election. Corruption and mismanagement of funds among public officials and politicians were among the main problems the people faced.
The Speaker of Mbale Municipal council, Mr Abdullah Kutosi, has been remanded on charges of abuse of office and corruption. Mr Kutosi, also a councillor representing people with disabilities in Mbale Municipality, was arrested by officials from the Inspectorate of Government on October 15 after allegedly receiving a bribe of Shs100, 000 from Mr Herman Kawanga. The speaker allegedly promised to help Mr Kawanga to secure a tender to collect garbage from Mbale main market, in contravention of the Penal Code Act. Prosecution said Mr Kutosi contravened the law when he accepted the money, thereby conducting himself in a manner that undermined his position.
Lack of clear tendering and procurement procedures in Constituency Development Fund projects has led to irregular awarding of tenders Many of the tenders are awarded to allies of the sitting MPs, according to a report prepared by the National AntiCorruption Campaign Steering Committee. The committee in the report, which was launched on Wednesday, says these tenders are not advertised thus inviting temptation to the irregular awarding. Since the CDF funds started being disbursed in 2003, one of the major complaints by people in several constituencies has been irregular awarding of the contracts. This is because it is the allies or relatives of the sitting MPs who are awarded the tenders in most cases. And they end up doing shoddy jobs on contracts awarded to them.
Estonian Security Police have searched the offices of the mayor and deputy mayor of Parnu as part of a widening investigation into possible corruption surrounding the citys road maintenance tender. "The proceeding was opened to look into suspicions that officials of the Parnu city government tried to groundlessly create favorable terms and advantages for a company participating in the public procurement tender for the maintenance of Parnu roads and streets that was announced in May," spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office Kulli Kivioja told the Baltic News Service. Even though the company did not win the tender, it is suspected that officials bended the public procurement rules in order to ensure the bid of the preferred company succeeded, she added.
The Daily Corruption | 7 November 2008
The final decisions on government tenders must be taken out of the hands of politicians, ANC president Jacob Zuma said on Friday. "We must remove adjudication of tenders from those that hold political office. We must separate it," he said. Responding to questions at a Cape Town Press Club breakfast he suggested a mechanism such as a tender board needed to be found to address this issue. "That will go a long way to delivering a telling blow against corruption, at least in government." Zuma said corruption was "all over" and causing anxiety in South Africa.
THROWN out by the Ugandan government on grounds of corruption, a South African firm has landed a multi-billion-shilling deal in Tanzania to produce Smartcard driving licences. According to informed sources, the company is charging $21.53 (approximately 25,200/-) per Smartcard driving licence but local experts claim that the amount is more than double the real cost. Media reports quoting Ugandas internal affairs ministry said that Face Technologies quoted $97m while the ministrys own evaluation had put the cost at $56m. In addition, Ugandas Inspector-General of Government reported that the tender submitted in 2006 by the South African company was tainted with corruption.
The investigation over the misuse of public funds and abuse of power in the construction of the Albania-Kosovo highway, will in the coming days find its way to court. Sources inside the General Prosecutors office have told Balkan Insight that official charges will be filed as early as next week, in what experts have calculated to be damage to the state in the range of 230 million. The evaluation was made using the average price of construction material and labour costs in comparison to what Albania is paying to build the road.
The Daily Corruption | 3 December 2008
The auditor general has unearthed a colossal fraud amounting to over Rs 300 Mn in the tender transactions for spare parts for power sets during the past few years. Twenty five Axle carriages and 25 Phil grease parts have been procured in this dubious manner. The supplier is an Indian company. The auditor generals report concludes that there was absolutely no need to procure these carriages and parts, because there was ample stocks in the stores already. The department has suffered a further loss of 13,138,625 rupees in the purchase of 15 power sets. A loss of 71,160,000 has been incurred in the purchase of diesel electrical engines and 64 alkaline battery sets. Malpractice has been detected in the purchase of 175 four wheel trolleys, 1441 hand signal lamps, and 1250 signal posts.

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