UN meet soon, India ill-prepared with anti-graft measures -Governance Now

UN meet soon, India ill-prepared with anti-graft measures

During its May meeting in Vienna, two countries selected in draw will review India’s effort in the country’s fight against corruption

Trithesh Nandan | April 13, 2013

While India comes under the mandatory “review mechanism” in compliance under the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) next month in Vienna, New Delhi has not made necessary efforts in fighting corruption.

“The meeting will take place in May but India has not completed its checklist required to go for a review,” Shannon Bullock, programme officer with corruption and economic crime branch division for treaty affairs with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told Governance Now.

“Some of the bills, like protection of whistleblower act, are (still) hanging in parliament,” she said. “India has not even enacted a law on protection of witnesses. At present, India is not compliant with such transparent steps against corruption. If such laws are passed, India will be in a stronger position.”
The consolation, however, for India lies in the fact that no country has done its full work compliance.

The review is done to check whether a country has taken steps under corrective measures to improve transparency measures.

The whistleblower bill was introduced in parliament in 2010, and passed by Lok Sabha in the winter session of 2011. Even the lokpal bill has not been enacted by the government. Besides, the government recently dropped its review plan to assess existing measures to check corruption. This was related to a self-evaluation study by independent experts on India's compliance with UNCAC.

New Delhi had ratified the UNAC treaty in May 2011, six years the convention came into force in 2005. Once a country signs the treaty it has to take measures in prevention of corruption; make certain acts related to corruption as criminal offence and provide for sanctions against them, and to facilitate recovery of assets in trans-border cases of corruption.

The review will be done by two other UNCAC member-countries under the review mechanism. The countries will be selected by a draw of lots during the UNODC meeting in Vienna.

India is among 164 nations which have either ratified or acceded to the UNCAC provisions.

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