Selasa, Agustus 11

A STUDY OF CORRUPTION SITUATIONS


INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

Feliciano Ximenes – Timor-Leste Anti-Corruption Commission
Postgraduate in Corruption Studies
Purpose

This paper aims to provide an overview and a study of corruption situations in Timor-Leste Anti-corruption commission.
Content
1.      Corruption opportunities in the organization;
2.      Analyse the causes of such corruption opportunities
3.      The effectiveness of the Anti-Corruption measures adopted by the organization;
4.      Recommendations for the improvement.

Summary

Corruptions in organization are shaped by the lack of strength of the control mechanisms of staff. Opportunity to engage in corrupt activities because of a lack of good control on the organization itself. Each organization is responsible for trying to develop an organizational behavior that reflects honesty and ethics communicated in writing and can be used as a handle by all employees. The culture must have root and have noble values ​​that the basis for the ethical management of an organization or an entity.
CAC is still too young, still a lot of shortcomings that must be addressed. even though we all know that corruption is not something foreign to us, but for the CAC is something very new, Timor-Leste anti-corruption commission has not yet experts who are specialists in the area of corruption, many drawback that must be repaired slowly. This article will share some light on the opportunity for corruption in this commission or organization, it does not mean that everything on the contents of this paper to explain that there has been, however, only likely to occur and describes some solutions and recommendations that can answer these problems if later problems occurs in the future.
Introduction

Timor Leste have a good political will to prevene, combate and against corruption since 1999. In 2000, UNTAET established an agency of government to control and audit the misuse of government administration and finances. The first government of  Timor-Leste created the Inspesaun Jerál (IGE) with those same responsibilities. Law No. 7, 2004, Article 23 PDHJ (Ombudsman of Human Right and Justice) with the mission to: oversee good government; promote human rights and combat and prevent corruption.
Following enactment of the Law on the Anti-Corruption Commission, (Law No. 8, 2009), Parliament elected the first Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (Comissão Anti-Corrupção - CAC) in February 2010. By December 2010, CAC had recruited staff to functional capacity. The responsibilities and functions of PDHJ regarding anti-corruption were extended to CAC in 2010.
CAC is a legal entity governed by public law; CAC has technical independence and administrative and financial authority. The Commission undertakes preventive and criminal investigation actions against corruption in any of its forms: embezzlement, abuse of power, trafficking of influence and financial participation in public affairs, as defined by penal legislation.
Corruption

Is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It hurts everyone who depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority.[1]
  1. Corruption opportunities in Timor Leste Anti-Corrution Commision

There are some of the opportunities for corruption that can occur in an anti-corruption commission of Timor-Leste.
Leaking confidential information by staff.
Theft of confidential information by visitors.
Misuse of resource or organization resources.
Fraude in administraton and finacial.
Nepotism in recruitment.
Fraudulent time shit travel claim.
Fraud in procurament.
Invoice fraud

  1. Analyze the causes of such corruption opportunities

The following are some of the causes that can lead to corruption in an anti-corruption commission.

a.      Leaking confidential information by staff

Leaks are often made by employees of an organization who happened to have access to interesting information but who is not officially authorized to disclose it to the press. They may believe that doing so is in the public interest due to the need for speedy publication, because it otherwise would not have been able to be made public, or simply as self-promotion, to elevate the leaker as a person of importance. Leaks can be intentional or unintentional.[2]
major threat to an institution if the confidential information released to the public, This all happened because of the absence of an induction system and have a guaranteed good wages for employees who work for part of the investigation and prevention. On the other hand, the confidential information could come out because of the bribery of a convicted or suspected of involvement in the corruption case. Whereby we know that, most of the suspects are wealthy people who have everything.

b.      Theft of confidential information by visitors

According to the Timor-Leste penal law 2008 art. 72 about secret justice, accordance with the penal law, the suspect did not put these regulations in place. On the other hand, the commission also established cooperation with the university students to assist in field survey conducted by the commission. Those students involved in the survey often come into the room and the employees freely access the information, of these problems can cause major problems with the release of confidential information to the commission due to lack of access restrictions between university students and employees themselves. Another problem is that there are computers that are distributed to employees, often used by other people such as family and friends, of this problem, others can access freely to the confidential documents.
c.       Misuse of resource or organization resources

Misuse of state goods is often found on a commission, goods or equipment is distributed to state employees can be abuse by the employees themselves. Sometimes, cars are distributed to facilitate the employees, instead used for personal gain. Sometimes, an employee who receives goods the country also use the goods do not conform to the regulations that have been enacted. Sometimes, the state received the goods, even used by others such as friends and family.
d.      Fraude in administraton and financial

“Maladministration” means acts and omissions outside the powers conferred, made on the basis of irrelevant considerations, mistake of facts and law or lack of due process, and which disrupt or undermine the effective and proper functioning of the Public Administration;[3]
Administration and finance is the most important part in an organization. Administration and finance who worked as the financial controller and management of an organization. Mistake in taking the decision could have a major impact for the organization, all of this could happen if the existence of a personal interest that could be detrimental to the organization itself. On the other hand, administrative and financial and work directly related to money, it can bring opportunities to commit criminal acts because of administrative and financial corruption involved directly with money, the risk exists because there is nothing to control the administration and finance. Another issue that is in administration and finance area is too broad and stout staff under the control of a centralized administration. As we know, the anti-corruption commission Timor-Leste consists of the administration of sub-directors of human resources, procurement, logistics, IT, public relations, receptionist, media and finance. Because it is too large, it is difficult to do a good control, it can lead to abuses and opportunities for corruption as part of administration and finance have a direct connection with money and decision-making on the part of the tender.
e.       Nepotism in recruitment
Definition of nepotism in recruitment is Practice of appointing relatives and friends in one's organization to positions for which outsiders might be better qualified. Despite its negative connotations, nepotism (if applied sensibly) is an important and positive practice in the start-up and formative years of a firm where complete trust and willingness to work hard (for little or no immediate reward) are critical for its survival.[4]

East Timor is a small country where almost all the residents know each other, job vacancy very limited and very selective in general; prospective employees who come to work in general are looking for people who know each other, those who came to the job is a friend, a family, this can lead to Conflict of interest and the evaluation team did not have the Declaration of Conflict of interest.
Evaluation team should make a declaration of Conflict of interest, in the absence of a declaration of conflict of interest it is very susceptible to the occurrence of nepotism. Another factor that can lead to nepotism in the recruitment of staff is a team that did not happen the turn of the evaluation, they just continued.
f.        Fraudulent time shit travel claim

CAC Timor-Leste is an anti-corruption commission was the youngest in the world today. Knowledge society against corruption is very small, it is necessary to disseminate to explain the meaning of the graft. In addition, CAC Timor-Leste also often outreach to communities in the interior, outside the city to explain about what is being done by the CAC itself. In addition to the CAC also monitors government projects managed by the private sector, monitoring and socialization are often performed outside the town, and therefore all staff receives a per diem for each way. Of this problem, it could provide an opportunity for manipulation or fraud journey or could have the staff to commit fraud on the duration of their trip. This problem often led to the perception among staff and the community.  Another possibility that could happen is that the staff did not do the job out of town and just aiming to get the per diem was or could have the staff take to the roads, but not according to time tables and plans already exist, they are only a few days out of town and home is not in accordance with the planned schedule.

g.      Fraud in procurament

Ministerial procurement is part of the administrative department; the tender process is worth fewer than 1 billion. tender process conducted by the ministerial procurament very important because it needs to purchase the necessary office in every day.
Types of Procurement Fraud

There are many ways that procurement fraud can be committed but the main types are:
Bid rigging/bid splitting;
Creation of shell companies to facilitate fraudulent payments;
Collusion between suppliers;
Purchase order and contract variation orders;
Unjustified single source awards;
False invoices for products and services for suppliers who do not exist.[5]
From the above problems, fraud or errors frequently occur and actors of these issues are itself procurement staff. Almost every year procurement often tender process for the procurement of goods for the needs of the office. As we know, this country is very small; all the society knows each other, difficult to control the conflict of interest, can also occur collaboration between private sector and procurement staff themselves. Another problem that often occurs in the tender process is a single-source, staff procurement designate the winning bidder directly without going through a tender process is legally based on rules and laws.
The risk of the emergence of corruption as well as the evaluation team to conduct the evaluation of the public sector is always the same. Procurement cycle Timor-Leste also has weaknesses that could be exploited by competitors to win a tender process. Lack of knowledge about procurement also one of the drawbacks of this commission which has the human resources are very limited and lack of human resources experts in areas such as procurement.
Common corruption risk
  • offering contract to friends and relatives (nepotism)
  • assisting in the preparation of tenders
  • leaking confidential information including prices quoted other competitors
  • preparation of tender with specifications  for materials only available from the offeror
  • showing favour to the offering  offeror in the tender assessment exercise 
Other Associated risk
  • acceptance of delivery of sub - standard goods
  • acceptance of delivery of sub - standard service
  • acceptance of less quantity of goods
  • failing to report under performance and substandard good delivered
  • over - rating contractor's performance
h.      Invoice fraud

Invoice fraud often occurs in the cash purchase of an item, every purchase of cash still using a manual system that is easy on the trace. Because the possibility of fraud is also a very large invoice. Invoice fraud often occurs in every program run by the commission; of course it requires substantial funds, any purchase of items needed in the program to use the money in cash, so that the invoice is still manual, so it can happen the possibility for corruption. Another thing that often happens on the invoice fraud is money allocated for operational monitoring team, often duplicated proof of purchase, so that when the report for the financial section also fraud proof of purchase of goods, this can be done by all members of the monitoring team, due to a lack of internal controls better.

  1. The effectiveness of the Anti-Corruption measures adopted by the organization;


Positif and negatif effectiveness of the Anti-Corruption measures.
a.      Positif effectiveness
·         Have a good political will to prevene and combate corruption.
·         Independent Commision, CAC has technical independence and administrative and financial authority. The Commission undertakes preventive and criminal investigation actions against corruption in any of its forms: embezzlement, abuse of power, trafficking of influence and financial participation in public affairs, as defined by penal legislation.
·         Have a good Enforcement capability to all staff.
b.      Negatif effectiveness
·         Don’t establish the right man on the right place.
·         Bed coordination between prevention and investigation.
·         Don’t have a declaration of conflict of interest.
·         Lack of good internal control.
·         Unhealthy competition among staff and lack of human resource on this commission, only 68 officials include cleaner, driver, national and international advisors, commissioner and deputy commissioner.
·         Have a difference in salaries between staff.
·         Lack of support from the specialist experts in the area of corruption.

  1. Recommendations for the improvement.

The following are some recommendations that can be used to solve the existing problems in the Timor-Leste anti-corruption commission.
·         There is need a code of conduct which explains in detail about the limitations of work for all employees.
·         There is need limitations of space between the visitor and the commission's own officer by providing design space that does not provide access for visitors to access to the staff room.
·         Hire information security and management controls.
·         Improve internal systems about confidential information leaking and keep a regular check on the outflow of confidential information from the commission.
·         Change passwords after the departure of any employees who have had access to sensitive information.
·         Improve the sufficient salary for all staff.
·         Improve for internal controls for all goods used by state officials to prevent abuse.
·         The need for restriction of access to state goods distributed to all staff.
·         There needs to be regulations about Conflict of interest.
·         Must declare any conflict of interest.
·         Capacity building to all staff about the integrity and how to manage the conflict of interest.
·         There is need internal audit to audit the administration and finance.
·         There needs to control for staff who do work outside the cities or in different places by giving control devices used on vehicles and perform cross checks directly to work closely with the destination administration by the staff.
·         Rotation the staff that work in procurement and have a good internal controls for part of procurement staff who deal with the tender process and handle the tender process.
Reference
Corruption Assessment: Timor-Leste
chapter12 Procurement Fraud Paul Guile
http://www.transparency.org


[1] http://www.transparency.org
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_leak
[3] Corruption Assessment: Timor-Leste
[5] chapter12 Procurement Fraud Paul Guile

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