ARTICLE - END IMPUNITY AND CORRUPTION

ACTING AGAINST CORRUPTION BY ENDING IMPUNITY
(Haiti Libre) -

To mark the International Day against corruption, of Friday, December 9, Amos Durosier, the Director General of the Unit to Combat Corruption (ULCC) declared that Haiti needed concrete and immediate results in the fight against this scourge.

" [...] it is for any State which is a party to these conventions, to take their responsibilities, and the first step, is to raise awareness to the public of the scourge of corruption. We need concrete and immediate results in this fight and the effectiveness depends on a political commitment at the highest levels of the State, which consists, for the highest political and moral authority, of launching a strong message in favor of transparency, accountability, integrity, honesty, the respect for established norms, and concern for the public good. In short, all of this is called good governance, in order to revive public confidence in the institutions of this country.

It is imperious to put an end to the impunity enjoyed for too long, by the corrupted and the corrupters [...] act against corruption today, ... for our legislators to vote a law against the repression and the prevention of corruption. This is an emergency for us in Haiti, since we have ratified these conventions, ... harmonize our laws so that the legal framework is modernized and allows a real prevention of corruption.

Acting against corruption, also involves the private business sector, the respect of standards of public contract, the promotion of transparency through regular publication of information on the financial statements, and good commercial practices of business, especially those who have contractual relationships with the State..."

Recalling that the fight against corruption can not be solely the work of the ULCC, Amos Durosier stressed that this struggle was transversal "...from a set of state institutions, of the civil society, international donors, together, we must loudly and clearly act against corruption immediately and to work sincerely and effectively in this direction, because it hurts us every year, when we are told that Haiti is among the countries perceived as most corrupt in the world...(1)"

For his part, Ban Ki-moon the Secretary General of the United Nations declared "On this International Anti-Corruption Day, let us pledge to do our part by cracking down on corruption, shaming those who practice it and engendering a culture that values ethical behaviour."

(1) [NdHL] In its latest ranking 2011, Transparency International released its Index of Corruption Perception [0 highly corrupt - 10 highly clean]. New Zealand leads with the highest score and North Korea (included in the index for the first time) arrives last in the standings, while Haiti is ranked 175th out of 183 countries with a score of 1.8. However, Transparency International indicates that the index of corruption perception, extracted from 17 different surveys and assessments [5 only in the case of Haiti in 2011] can not be compared from one year to another. Two thirds of the countries assessed in this study, received a score lower than 5.