For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 10, 2004
Fighting Corruption/Improving Transparency
Last year in Evian we committed ourselves to act together, and with
developing country partners and the international community, to fight
corruption and improve transparency. We will do still more to help cut
away the burden of corruption on economic growth. What follows is a
report on follow-up to the commitments we made in Evian.
Country-led Transparency Compacts Launched
G-8 governments are working with a number of developing countries
with a view toward building voluntary partnerships to assist their
efforts to increase transparency and thereby to use public resources
wisely. These efforts will focus on transparency in public budgets,
including revenues and expenditures, government procurement, the
letting of public concessions and the granting of licenses. Special
emphasis will be given to cooperation with countries with large
extractive industries sectors. These partnerships will be put in
place through voluntary compacts that lay out commitments on both sides
in support of country-owned strategies and in full complementarity with
ongoing initiatives and programs. - The Governments of Georgia,
Nicaragua, Nigeria and Peru have come forward with the first such
compacts to achieve these important goals. Other interested countries
are actively pursuing compacts. We task our relevant ministries to
develop in partnership with these countries implementation plans.
- Partner governments have specified, in concrete terms, what they
intend to do to bring greater transparency and accountability to the
management of public resources.
- Participating G-8 countries
will support them by providing bilateral technical assistance and
political support. With each compact partner, participants will
develop action plans that set forth our joint efforts to achieve
measurable improvements in these areas.
- Participating G-8
governments will work with partner countries to enlist the support and
engagement of private companies, organizations and civil society, as
well as international institutions.
- For partner countries rich
in oil, natural gas, and mineral resources, the compacts will pay
particular attention to the transparency of revenue flows and payments
in these sectors, while protecting the necessary confidentiality of
business operations. Our shared goal is to help combat the harmful
effects on development when national resources and revenues are
misused. Complementary efforts to promote transparency are also taken
forward by countries participating in the Extractives Industry
Transparency Initiative.
UN Convention Against Corruption Agreed
G-8 governments met their Evian goal of seeing conclusion of the UN
Convention Against Corruption, which establishes high international
standards of public integrity, transparency and accountability, and
facilitates the recovery of illicitly acquired assets that have been
transferred abroad. To ensure that this important new international
agreement is implemented effectively, we will: - Remain
committed to become parties to the Convention and call for rapid
signature and completion of all necessary steps to ratify and implement
the Convention, and support the convening in Vienna of a multilateral
"Friends of the Convention" process for promoting active and effective
implementation.
- We are committed to translating the words of this
Convention into effective actions and assisting third countries,
particularly developing countries, in accomplishing the objectives of
the Convention.
- We welcome the agreement of Justice and Home
Affairs Ministers on recovering proceeds of corruption.
- We support
our Ministers' determination to detect, recover and return these
illicitly acquired assets, including by:
- establishing G-8
accelerated response teams;
- enhancing G-8 asset recovery case
coordination; and
- holding G-8 asset recovery
workshops.
- To meet these goals, we will ensure
that:
- each of our countries has rules in place by Summer 2005,
where possible, to require due diligence for "politically exposed
persons" accounts;
- each of our countries has rules in place,
preferably by 12/31/04, to require wire transfer originator
information;
- we create G-8 best practices for modalities of
disposition and return; and
- we explore effective measures to
recover assets in corruption cases.
Denying Safe Haven to Officials Guilty of Corruption
We reaffirm our commitment at Evian to seek in accordance with
national laws to deny safe haven to public officials guilty of
corruption, by denying them entry, when appropriate. We will direct our
experts to examine and improve efforts to achieve this objective and
review progress at our next Summit.
Public Financial Management and Accountability Strengthened
We welcome the real progress to strengthen public financial
management and accountability programs in the International Financial
Institutions (IFIs). The IMF agreed to publish its program documents
and surveillance reports effective July 2004.
The Inter-American Development Bank also agreed on an improved
disclosure policy. We will encourage countries to meet the high
disclosure and transparency standards set by the IFIs and to:
- Achieve agreement on full disclosure of the World Bank
International Development Association's (IDA) Country Policy and
Institutional Assessment results, with disclosure to start with the
2005 ratings;
- Seek full disclosure of performance evaluations
in the regional development banks;
- Maintain solid G-8
support for mandatory publication of country assistance strategies at
the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank this year, and at other
regional banks in the future.
- Encourage IMF members to
complete and publish IMF reports/diagnostics that examine each
country's budget procedures to determine the level of transparency and
accountability;
- Support the efforts of the Public Expenditure
and Financial Accountability (PEFA) program at the World Bank to help
developing countries achieve accountability in public finance and
expenditure and to extend harmonized approaches to the assessment and
reform of their public financial and accountability systems;
procurement should follow a strong, parallel track to ensure that it is
not subsumed or marginalized by the streamlining; and
- Invite
developing countries to prepare anti-corruption action plans to
implement their commitments in regional and international
conventions.
OECD Anti-Bribery Convention Reviews Accelerated and Corporate
Compliance Programs Encouraged
We made good progress to fulfill the G-8's Evian pledge to
strengthen OECD monitoring of the Anti-Bribery Convention. The OECD
Council approved a reform package on in February, 2004, including a
mechanism to fund the Working Group on Bribery (WGB). It achieves
stable funding through 2007 to complete a full round of important peer
reviews that examine member country's enforcement track record.
- We will adhere rigorously to our updated 2004-2007 enforcement
review schedule, honour our pledges to serve as lead examiners or
examinees, and send our prosecutors and other law enforcement officials
to participate in peer reviews.
- We will encourage efforts of
our private sectors to develop and implement corporate compliance
programs to promote adherence to laws against foreign bribery, and
welcome the positive steps already taken by certain industries to
develop specific principles relevant to their specific activities to
promote such compliance.
Framework Strengthened for Fighting Financial Crimes, Money
Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism
All G-8 countries committed to implement the Financial Action Task
Force (FATF) revised 40 recommendations adopted in June 2003.
We are promoting implementation of the UN Transnational Organized
Crime (TOC) Convention. We will develop a diplomatic strategy to urge
speedy consideration of ratification of the TOC Convention and
coordinate with others, including donors to the UN Office on Drugs and
Crime, to provide technical assistance to promote implementation of the
Convention.
We strongly support the broad international effort undertaken by
the IMF/World Bank, the FATF and other international organizations to
assess jurisdictions' compliance with the anti-money laundering and
combating of the financing of terrorist (AML/CFT) standard. We urge
all jurisdictions to move with dispatch to address shortcomings in
their regimes. As part of the international effort, we look forward to
delivery of technical assistance to help jurisdictions address
identified shortfalls in their AML/CFT regimes.
Transparency Focus in Trade Agreements Reaffirmed
We reaffirm our pledge at Evian to "work towards including in our
regional and bilateral trade agreements provisions requiring
transparency in government procurement, the awarding of concessions, as
well as provisions on trade facilitation."
Review of Off-Shore Financial Centers Continues
We reaffirm our commitment to further enhance transparency and
supervisory standards in financial markets in particular non-compliant
off-shore centers. We ask our Finance Ministers to carry this work
forward. In this regard, we welcome the IMF's regular monitoring and
assessment of offshore financial centers' compliance with international
standards. We also urge all financial centers, both off-shore and
on-shore, to adopt high standards of transparency and exchange of
information in all tax matters.
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