The BRR Approach to Transparency and Accountability
Context
Considering the challenges of managing and accounting for a large amount of resources within a tight time frame and under circumstances in which pre-existing administrative and governance capacity has been weakened, the need for an aggressive and pro-active approach to preventing corrupt practices from undermining the integrity of the rehabilitation and reconstruction program has been a top priority for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) Aceh-Nias since its establishment.
Key elements to the BRR approach
The BRR approach to overcoming the challenges presented by corruption is to establish the highest ethical standards with regards to staff and officials of BRR. BRR also aggressively promotes to the public and to its partners the appropriate ways to engage with BRR so as to minimize the potential for corruption.
Specific programs include:
The BRR Anti Corruption Unit (Satuan Anti-Korupsi, or SAK)
Spearheading the overall approach to the BRR anti corruption strategy is a dedicated Anti Corruption Unit. The Unit has three broad areas of engagement, namely:
Prevention: This means looking at systems to identify potential areas of weakness that may give rise to corrupt practices and recommending improvements to strengthen the integrity of the systems concerned.
Education: This component focuses on getting the messages clear and targeted on the imperative of high ethical standards. This means getting messages to staff and officials on how to apply the highest standards and to the wider community on how to work with BRR while maintaining high standards.
Investigation. The Unit also has the capacity to review specific activities to ensure they comply with procedures and to the maximum extent possible prevent the loss of resources through potentially corrupt practices. In this way the process of investigation may be seen akin to “a stitch of prevention in time saves 9 investigations later”.
The Unit works closely with other agencies with a mandate to redress the problems of corruption, collusion ad nepotism. In cases where the Unit senses a potential of corruption, the information is fed to the nation’s Anti Corruption Commission. In cases where collusion may have taken place, the information is fed to the nation’s Supervisory Commission for Business Competition. For more general cases of criminal breach of law, the police will be contacted.
The Unit has also established an active complaints handling process. Since being established in mid September to mid November the Unit received some 120 complaints. Of this figure some 20% related to possible issues of corruption or collusion, while a further 18% relate to issues of processing tenders. A further 16% relate to issues of staff performance.
Many other cases include requests to staff of the Unit on matters of personal professional ethical advice. This component represents an important part of the prevention approach. Additionally staff and officials use this service when developing their work programs to ensure these programs are insofar as possible free of ethical hazards.
More recently external agencies such as donors have also begun to make use of these ethical advisory services of the Unit to ensure that their programs are free of potential problems.
In addition to providing a mechanism to launch reviews of systems and practices, the complaints system generates very useful data, which is used by the Unit to develop programs of targeted intervention, be these systems reforms or information/education campaigns.
In the near future the Unit will, in cooperation with other institutions, launch a campaign targeting officials, business people, NGOs and the media focused on problems related to collusion in tendering. The program will cover both regions of Aceh and Nias.
The establishment of the Unit as an integral part of the Executing Agency of the BRR was a deliberate decision taken to ensure that programs of ethical administration are “mainstreamed” into core work practices rather than being seen as imposed externally.
Considering the challenges of managing and accounting for a large amount of resources within a tight time frame and under circumstances in which pre-existing administrative and governance capacity has been weakened, the need for an aggressive and pro-active approach to preventing corrupt practices from undermining the integrity of the rehabilitation and reconstruction program has been a top priority for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) Aceh-Nias since its establishment.
Key elements to the BRR approach
The BRR approach to overcoming the challenges presented by corruption is to establish the highest ethical standards with regards to staff and officials of BRR. BRR also aggressively promotes to the public and to its partners the appropriate ways to engage with BRR so as to minimize the potential for corruption.
Specific programs include:
- All staff and officials of BRR sign detailed Integrity Pacts that outline the ways in which they are to manage potential ethical hazards in performing their duties;
- All development partners whose programs are endorsed by BRR sign an anti corruption pact which they are able to use to affirm their commitment to potential interlocutors who might wish to engage them in any corrupt activities;
- Transparency in program development and reporting, including through the RAN Database System which once fully operational will provide detailed information through an open internet program the status of all projects being funded in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Aceh and Nias;
- Deployment of a 40 person strong (international and national) team of experts with a mandate to ensure quality assurance of programs being implemented throughout the affected regions;
- Deployment of a 30 person team of national auditors who are tasked with overseeing compliance and also providing advice to procurement teams with a view to preventing any deviation from appropriate systems;
- Active promotion of a “no gratuities” program that targets both staff and officials of BRR (do not accept) and to the wider community (do not give). The objective of this program is to reduce the potential for the abuse of gifts and gratuities for inappropriate purposes;
- Establishment of a dedicated Anti Corruption Unit within BRR.
The BRR Anti Corruption Unit (Satuan Anti-Korupsi, or SAK)
Spearheading the overall approach to the BRR anti corruption strategy is a dedicated Anti Corruption Unit. The Unit has three broad areas of engagement, namely:
Prevention: This means looking at systems to identify potential areas of weakness that may give rise to corrupt practices and recommending improvements to strengthen the integrity of the systems concerned.
Education: This component focuses on getting the messages clear and targeted on the imperative of high ethical standards. This means getting messages to staff and officials on how to apply the highest standards and to the wider community on how to work with BRR while maintaining high standards.
Investigation. The Unit also has the capacity to review specific activities to ensure they comply with procedures and to the maximum extent possible prevent the loss of resources through potentially corrupt practices. In this way the process of investigation may be seen akin to “a stitch of prevention in time saves 9 investigations later”.
The Unit works closely with other agencies with a mandate to redress the problems of corruption, collusion ad nepotism. In cases where the Unit senses a potential of corruption, the information is fed to the nation’s Anti Corruption Commission. In cases where collusion may have taken place, the information is fed to the nation’s Supervisory Commission for Business Competition. For more general cases of criminal breach of law, the police will be contacted.
The Unit has also established an active complaints handling process. Since being established in mid September to mid November the Unit received some 120 complaints. Of this figure some 20% related to possible issues of corruption or collusion, while a further 18% relate to issues of processing tenders. A further 16% relate to issues of staff performance.
Many other cases include requests to staff of the Unit on matters of personal professional ethical advice. This component represents an important part of the prevention approach. Additionally staff and officials use this service when developing their work programs to ensure these programs are insofar as possible free of ethical hazards.
More recently external agencies such as donors have also begun to make use of these ethical advisory services of the Unit to ensure that their programs are free of potential problems.
In addition to providing a mechanism to launch reviews of systems and practices, the complaints system generates very useful data, which is used by the Unit to develop programs of targeted intervention, be these systems reforms or information/education campaigns.
In the near future the Unit will, in cooperation with other institutions, launch a campaign targeting officials, business people, NGOs and the media focused on problems related to collusion in tendering. The program will cover both regions of Aceh and Nias.
The establishment of the Unit as an integral part of the Executing Agency of the BRR was a deliberate decision taken to ensure that programs of ethical administration are “mainstreamed” into core work practices rather than being seen as imposed externally.
Source: www.e-aceh-nias.org
posted by borokoa @ 1:50 AM
0 comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home