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 Daily Corruption | 8 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 9 January 2008
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 government’s first year in
power.
According to Estat.cz’s 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 public’s access to all nonclassified information.
“The fight against corruption is one of the government’s main priorities,” the agenda
states.
The Daily Corruption | 10 January 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 11 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 11 January 2008
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.
Zuma’s enraged allies, through Cosatu’s KwaZulu-Natal leader Zet Luzipho, have
threatened that “blood will be spilt”. The statement was later withdrawn, but the point
had been made.
The Daily Corruption | 12 January 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 14 January 2008
The call for an investigation into the Health Department’s 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 Department’s hierarchy.”
The Daily Corruption | 14 January 2008
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 Alliance’s 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.
The Daily Corruption | 18 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 20 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 20 January 2008
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 People’s 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.
The Daily Corruption | 23 January 2008
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 General’s 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.
The Daily Corruption | 23 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 25 January 2008
"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."
The Daily Corruption | 25 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 26 January 2008
“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 Daily Corruption | 28 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 30 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 30 January 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 30 January 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 30 January 2008
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, Azad’s 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.
The Daily Corruption | 7 February 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 9 February 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 9 February 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 14 February 2008
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 Attorney’s 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 Jože Pučnik, which
was the primary motif for arrest, was cancelled and the Agency for Air Traffic Control will
publish a new tender.
The Daily Corruption | 15 February 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 22 February 2008
The energy minister delayed a raid on the state-owned pipeline company BOTAŞ'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 Tamöz briefed Energy Minister Hilmi Güler on the matter and was
asked to delay the operation, the indictment said. The minister suspended all BOTAŞ
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 Daily Corruption | 22 February 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 23 February 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 24 February 2008
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.
Jiří Pilský, 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.
The Daily Corruption | 12 March 2008
Nine suspects, including Edirne Mayor Hamdi Sedefçi, 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 Özal, Ahmet Özal, were released pending trial. All
suspects were questioned by the Edirne prosecutor's office.
Özal, 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.
The Daily Corruption | 13 March 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 15 March 2008
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'
The Daily Corruption | 22 March 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 17 April 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 18 April 2008
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
ministry’s 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.
The Daily Corruption | 18 April 2008
German companies did not register any improvement in the traditional weak points of
Bulgaria’s business environment: corruption, the lack of transparency in public
procurements, as well as the poor state of the country’s 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 Daily Corruption | 18 April 2008
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 department’s 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 Daily Corruption | 24 April 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 30 April 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 30 April 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 4 May 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 7 May 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 8 May 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 10 May 2008
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 Usba’a 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 authority’s 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 Daily Corruption | 10 May 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 21 May 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 22 May 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 13 June 2008
One of Turkey's leading companies has denied corruption charges relating to its
participation in tenders on building compressor stations in the Hanak, Çorum 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 BOTAŞ, tenders in 2005-2006. The daily implied that
Siemens had offered a bribe worth 57 million euros to high-level Turkish officials.
The Daily Corruption | 26 June 2008
Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, has made strides in addressing rampant
corruption, but challenges remain, a top World Bank official said.
Emmanuel Mbi, the World Bank’s 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 Prosecutor’s 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 Daily Corruption | 10 July 2008
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."
The Daily Corruption | 11 July 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 15 July 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 19 July 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 19 July 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 26 July 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 28 July 2008
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 commission’s 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
Albania’s 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 Albania’s 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.
The Daily Corruption | 13 September 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 19 September 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 21 September 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 25 September 2008
The Diyarbakır 7th Army Corps Military Prosecutor's Office has expanded an
investigation into allegations of corruption in tenders held by the Defense Ministry's
Diyarbakır Construction Real Estate NATO ENF Regional Office to include the
Diyarbakır Internal Supply Services
Directorate.
Diyarbakır 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 Diyarbakır, Şırnak,
Batman, Urfa and Mardin for the year 2008.
The Daily Corruption | 26 September 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.
The Daily Corruption | 29 September 2008
A voice recording discovered in Ankara allegedly features the voice of the mayor of the
district of Çankaya, known as a stronghold of the Republican People’s 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 Çankaya Mayor Muzaffer Eryılmaz says in the recording
that the mayor can’t 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 $1 trillion each year. Such a sum can only
adversely affect the economic growth of developing countries, which can ill afford such
cost.
The Daily Corruption | 16 October 2008
Thirty people, including the deputy head of a health unit, have been taken into custody
charged with tender corruption in the central Eskisehir province of Turkey, the state-run
Anatolian Agency reported. (UPDATED)
Thirty people, including the deputy general manager of the Basic Health Services
section of the Health Ministry, Seraceddin Com, have been taken into custody on
charges related to tender corruption, TV channels reported.
The Daily Corruption | 8 16ctober 2008
ALL Pakistan Water Supply Users (APWSU) Chairman Engineer Noor Muhammad
Rehmani has pointed out several flaws in two government tenders invited for
development projects.
Rehmani said the engineers employed by the government were corrupt, adding that the
government had not been able to trace their malpractices due to lack of supervision and
monitoring of tenders.
‘The project director rejected the bids of all the companies on the pretext that they were
incapable of supplying digital water meters,‘ he said, adding that the PD secretly
finalised a deal with one of the bidders to get 6,000 mechanical water meters at the rate
of 65 Euro per meter. Another company objected to the deal and expressed its interest
in providing the same model of mechanical water meters at a saving of Rs 20 million.
The Daily Corruption | 17 October 2008
The police yesterday came to the head office of state-owned oil company PT Pertamina
and confiscated documents linked with an alleged corruption case involving Zatapi
crude oil imports.
The case began February last year when Pertamina bought 600.000 barrels of Zatapi
crude oil from PT Gold Manor International Ltd (Singapore).
Corruption allegations emerged because no due diligence was carried prior to the
purchase of the Zatapi crude. The oil procurement contract amounted to US$ 54 million.
The Development and Finance Supervisory Board (BPKP) is still calculating the
financial loss incurred by the state.
The Daily Corruption | 17 October 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 19 October 2008
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 Daily Corruption | 19 October 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 23 October 2008
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.
The Daily Corruption | 24 October 2008
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 city’s
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.
The Daily Corruption | 11 November 2008
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 Uganda’s internal affairs ministry said that Face Technologies
quoted $97m while the ministry’s own evaluation had put the cost at $56m.
In addition, Uganda’s Inspector-General of Government reported that the tender
submitted in 2006 by the South African company was tainted with corruption.
The Daily Corruption | 20 November 2008
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 general’s 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.