Difference between revisions of "Transparency International"

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'''Transparency International''' (TI) is an NGO operating under the slogan "fighting corruption worldwide"<ref>About Us, [http://www.transparency.org.uk/aboutus/index.htm About Tranparency International UK], ''Transparency International'', Accessed 29-June-2009</ref>. The organisation was co-founded by [[Peter Eigen]], [[Michael Hershman]], [[Jeremy Pope]], [[Laurence Cockcroft]], [[Joe Githongo]], [[Michael Hershman]], [[Kamal Hossein]], and [[Frank Vogl]]<ref>Jeremy Pope, [http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=11764 Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader], ''Sun2Surf'', 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009</ref>. [[Beth Aub]] was the general secretary for the Jamaica chapter of TI. She resigned her membership of the ‘global anti-corruption body’ in 2004, alleging corrupt practices such as "facilitation payments" by TI, a term she described as another name for bribery and corruption.<ref>Bolaji Abdullahi, [http://www.thisdayonline.com/archive/2003/01/14/20030114news03.html Bribery Scandal Rocks Transparency International], ''thisdayonline.com'', 16-November-2004, Accessed 24-June-2009</ref>
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'''Transparency International''' (TI) is an NGO operating under the slogan "fighting corruption worldwide"<ref>About Us, [http://www.transparency.org.uk/aboutus/index.htm About Tranparency International UK], ''Transparency International'', Accessed 29-June-2009</ref>. [[Beth Aub]] was the general secretary for the Jamaica chapter of TI. She resigned her membership of the ‘global anti-corruption body’ in 2004, alleging corrupt practices such as "facilitation payments" by TI, a term she described as another name for bribery and corruption.<ref>Bolaji Abdullahi, [http://www.thisdayonline.com/archive/2003/01/14/20030114news03.html Bribery Scandal Rocks Transparency International], ''thisdayonline.com'', 16-November-2004, Accessed 24-June-2009</ref>
  
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== Transparency International's origins ==
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== History ==
  
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TI's origins are in the World Bank:
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Transparency International was founded in 1993 by [[Peter Eigen]], [[Michael Hershman]], [[Jeremy Pope]], [[Laurence Cockcroft]], [[Joe Githongo]], [[Michael Hershman]], [[Kamal Hossein]], and [[Frank Vogl]]<ref>Jeremy Pope, [http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=11764 Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader], ''Sun2Surf'', 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009</ref>. Founding member Jeremy Pope described in an interview the emergence of an idea "that a group could organise to campaign against corruption on the part of the rich multinationals in the North as one way of helping the South with the problem that it was experiencing"]]<ref>Jeremy Pope, [http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=11764 Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader], ''Sun2Surf'', 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009</ref>.
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:But then [James D] Wolfensohn came to the World Bank and we immediately made contact with Wolfensohn. And he invited us over to Washington to make a presentation to the senior staff on the effect of corruption on World Bank projects because our argument was that corruption was an economic matter, not a political one. This was about 1995. And then Wolfensohn made a very famous speech in Hong Kong when he said the World Bank was going to take on the corruption issue and not one government opposed this.<ref>Ref needed</ref>
 
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An interview with [[Jeremy Pope]] tells us of the organisation's origins:
 
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:[[Peter Eigen]] was the first chair. In fact, he's retiring next month. [[Laurence Cockcroft]], who is a British development economist; [[Joe Githongo]], a Kenyan, who is an accountant; [[Michael Hershman]], an American, who had been in control of [[USAID]], who is very strong on corruption in institutions. There was [[Kamal Hossein]], a former minister of justice, minister of foreign affairs of Bangladesh, a very distinguished international lawyer, and considered in Bangladesh to be the most honest person in the country - that's why when he stands for Parliament, he loses. [[Frank Vogel]] was in there as well. He was a former correspondent in Washington for the London Times and had spent two or three years at the World Bank running their information division.<ref>Tiri [http://www.tiri.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=50 interview with Jeremy Pope]</ref>
 
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This adds that the initial money was provided by the  [[Rowntree Foundation]], and the [[Nuffield Foundation]]. The German development agency guaranteed their rent, and then, the [[Ford Foundation]] came in. "Finally, what really made TI was when [[USAID]] came with about $3 million. At that stage, I decided I didn't want to manage this thing anymore."<ref>Ref needed</ref>
 
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[[Michael Hershman]] was a Special Agent with U.S. Military Intelligence and both the Ford Foundation and USAID have close connections with the US Secret State.  Jeremy Pope has started up his own organisation, [[Tiri]], with similarly high level funders.
 
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According to TI The first [http://ww1.transparency.org/about_ti/history.html#note2 Board] comprised Chairman [[Peter Eigen]] (Germany), Vice-Chairman [[Kamal Hossain]] (Bangladesh), Vice-Chairman [[Frank Vogl]] (USA), Laurence Cockroft (UK), [[Dolores Espanol]] (Philippines), [[Theo Frank]] (Namibia), [[Joe Githongo]] (Kenya), [[Michael Hershman]] (USA), and [[Gerry Parfitt]] (UK).<ref>In October 2002, parliamentarians from different parts of the world set up the [[Global Organization of Parliamentarians against Corruption]] (GOPAC). In 2003, a committee made of representatives of the private sector (including General Electric, [[PricewaterhouseCoopers]] ([[Gerry Parfitt]] mentioned above is PwC) and Shell International), non-governmental organizations, the [[European Bank for Reconstruction and  Development]] and the [[Trade Union Advisory Committee]] to the OECD elaborated the Business Principles for countering bribery.  See Julie Bajolle (2005) [http://hussonet.free.fr/bajolle.pdf The origins and motivations of the current emphasis on corruption: The case of transparency international] paper for Common Session on Criminal Justice and Critical Criminology, Univresity of Hamburg, May 8 – 10, 2006 Hamburg, Internationalisation of Criminal Justice and Security Policy.</ref>
 
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The first Advisory council comprised [[Oscar Arias Sanchez]] (Costa Rica), [[Paul Batchelor]] (UK), [[Peter Berry]] (UK), [[Alberto Dahik]] (Ecuador), [[Boubakar Diaby-Ouattara]] (Ivory Coast), [[Ugo Draetta]] (Italy), [[Hansjörg Elshorst]] (Germany), [[Dieter Frisch]] (Germany), [[Johan Galtung]] (Norway), [[Roy Herberger]] (USA), [[Gerhard Kienbaum]] (Germany), [[Alain Marsaud]] (France), [[Ian Martin]] (UK), [[Hans Matthöfer]] (Germany), [[Ronald MacLean Abaroa]] (Bolivia), [[Peter MacPherson]] (USA), [[Ira Millstein]] (USA), [[Festus Mogae]] (Botswana), [[Miklos Nemeth]] (Hungary), [[Olusegun Obasanjo]] (Nigeria), [[Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah]] (Mauritania), [[Devendra Raj Panday]] (Nepal), [[Joe B. Wanjui]] (Kenya), [[Andrew Young]] (USA).
 
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According to TI funding from the Ford Foundation was organised by [[Fritz Heimann]] Counselor to the General Counsel, [[General Electric Company]] and founding member and director of Transparency International.  Heimann writes for the Council on Foreign Relations'<ref>[http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19980901facomment1414/john-brademas-fritz-heimann/tackling-international-corruption-no-longer-taboo.html Foreign Affairs]</ref> Foreign Affairs journal with [[John Brademas]], Chairman of the [[National Endowment for Democracy]], and a member of Transparency International's International Advisory Council. Fritz Heimann was Chair of [[Transparency International USA]] from 1993 to 2005. 
 
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Wesley A. Cragg and William Woof's [http://iscte.pt/~ansmd/CC-Cragg.pdf The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act  and its implications for the Control of Corruption in Political Life], states that when American MNC Westinghouse claimed that the commissions paid in the course of its contract for nuclear generating facilities for Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos were proper and that no US  laws were violated, the company’s assertions were challenged by other sources within the Philippine government who claim that commissions of $50 million were actually paid, out of which Marcos himself received $30 million.  The arbitration of the case was heard by the International Chamber of Commerce, which ruled in December 1991 that there was insufficient evidence to support charges of bribery against Westinghouse.  Of Heimann they say:
 
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:"Fritz Heimann notes in correspondence to Wesley Cragg, dated December 18, 2000,  that ‘the ICC ultimately decided that the Westinghouse payment to the brother of Imelda Marcos was not a bribe because he was not a government official and the Philippine government had produced no evidence that any of the money had been paid to a government official’. It should be noted that the US courts refused Westinghouse’s attempt to throw out the case based on the ICC decision. We replied to Fritz Heimann  that Mr. Romualdez served in various government posts and could hardly claim to have  an arm’s length relationship to the Marcos family."<ref>Ref needed</ref>
 
  
 
==Spotlighting Venezuela==
 
==Spotlighting Venezuela==

Revision as of 19:04, 6 July 2009

TI.jpg

Transparency International (TI) is an NGO operating under the slogan "fighting corruption worldwide"[1]. Beth Aub was the general secretary for the Jamaica chapter of TI. She resigned her membership of the ‘global anti-corruption body’ in 2004, alleging corrupt practices such as "facilitation payments" by TI, a term she described as another name for bribery and corruption.[2]

History

Transparency International was founded in 1993 by Peter Eigen, Michael Hershman, Jeremy Pope, Laurence Cockcroft, Joe Githongo, Michael Hershman, Kamal Hossein, and Frank Vogl[3]. Founding member Jeremy Pope described in an interview the emergence of an idea "that a group could organise to campaign against corruption on the part of the rich multinationals in the North as one way of helping the South with the problem that it was experiencing"]][4].

Spotlighting Venezuela

On 28 April 2008, TI published a report on the transparency of oil revenue accounts of many countries.[5] The curious aspect of the report is the way Venezuela's accounting was reported. The following account is by Calvin Tucker, co-editor of 21stcenturysocialism.com, writing in The Guardian:

The credibility of Transparency International, a global "non-partisan" organisation which "promotes transparency in elections, in public administration, in procurement and in business", is on the line. Their latest report on Venezuela, which was produced after months of research, is factually inaccurate in almost every respect. TI say that they "stand by their report" and stand by the person who compiled the data, an anti-Chávez activist who backed the 2002 military coup against democracy.
The full report, dated April 28 2008 and titled Promoting Revenue Transparency examined the published accounts of oil companies in 42 different countries, and ranked them according to whether they were of high, medium or low transparency. Venezuela's state-owned oil firm PDVSA was given the lowest possible ranking. Transparency International say that "comprehensive corporate reporting diminishes the opportunities for corrupt officials to extort funds".
PDVSA was directly accused of failing to disclose basic financial information such as their revenues and how much royalties they paid, and of not producing properly audited accounts. The international corporate media considers TI to be a reliable source, despite the fact that almost all their funding comes from western governments and big business. The British government is one of the major donors, contributing £1 million in 2007. Other donors include the US government, Shell and Exxon Mobil. Unsurprisingly, TI's damning report was seized upon by rightwing newspapers and websites and used as another stick with which to beat Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chávez.
When Dan Burnett, a New York-based blogger who runs the popular Oil Wars website, read the TI report, he almost choked on his cornflakes. Burnett had been analysing PDVSA's accounts for several years, and regularly writes about the financial information that TI claims does not exist.
I checked the PDVSA website. Burnett was right to be astonished. On page 127 of their financial statement it says that revenue for 2007 was $96.242bn, and that they paid $21.9bn in royalties. On page 148, PDVSA's auditors state that the accounts were prepared in accordance with international accounting standards. Further research showed that PDVSA's financial statements are also published in hard copy, and are widely reported in the domestic media, both in newspapers and on television.
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However, TI's explanation for their inaccurate report on PDVSA contained a much more serious problem. It was wrong. The March 29 edition of El Universal, a major opposition newspaper, featured a report on PDVSA's financial statement, together with a photograph of PDVSA's president, Rafael Ramirez, holding up a copy of the 2007 report and accounts. The information that TI claimed was being withheld by PDVSA, was published four weeks before they made their allegations. Armed with this additional information, I attempted to contact TI's press spokesperson again for a comment. My calls were not returned.
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Transparency International denies that they pursue an anti-Chavez agenda. "We are not a political organisation", their spokesperson told me. Despite this denial, TI's Venezuela bureau is staffed by opponents of the Venezuelan government (pdf). The directors include Robert Bottome, the publisher of Veneconomia, a strident opposition journal, and Aurelio Concheso of the Centre for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge, a conservative thinktank funded by the US government. Concheso was previously a director of the employers' organisation, Fedecamaras. The president of Fedecamaras, Pedro Carmo, led the failed 2002 coup and was briefly installed as Venezuela's dictator.
The data in TI's report was gathered by Mercedes de Freitas, the head of their Caracas bureau and a longtime opponent of President Chávez. De Freitas' previous job was running a US government funded opposition "civil society" group. The Nation reported on her response to the 2002 military coup: "... on the night of April 12 - after Carmona suspended the assembly - Mercedes de Freitas, a director of the Fundacion Momento de la Gente, a legislative monitoring project subsidized by NED [National Endowment for Democracy, a US government agency], emailed the endowment defending the military and Carmona, claiming the takeover was not a military coup."[6]

Funders

ABB AMEC Anglo American
Bombardier BP International Consolidated Contractors
EBRD Fluor Corporation Halcrow Group
Hilti Corporation Hochtief International Federation of Inspection Agencie
ISIS Equity Partners KPMG Motorola
Novo Nordisk Obayashi Corporation Pfizer
PricewaterhouseCoopers Rio Tinto SGS
SIKA Skanska SNC Lavalin
Deutsche Bank
Between € 50,000 AND € 200,000:
Federal Foreign Office - Germany Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) Chr. Michelsen Institute - Norway
Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) Ireland AID The Charles S. Mott Foundation USA
Over € 200,000:
European Commission Ministry for Foreign Affairs - Finland Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) - Germany
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) US Agency for International Development (USAID) Department for International Development (DFID) - UK
Ministry of Foreign Affairs - The Netherlands Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)
The Ford Foundation - USA AVINA Group - Switzerland Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Private Sector
TI also received "generous contributions" from participants in the Global Corporations for Transparency International (GCTI) initiative [7]:
Exxon General Electric Lafarge
Merck Norsk Hydro SAP AG
Shell International Sovereign Asset Management Sovereign Global Development Anglo American Nexen UBS
Companies participating in this initiative typically contribute 50,000 Euro per year to Transparency International.
Participants in private sector projects
ABB Amanco Bombardier
BP Calvert Consolidated Contractors
F&C Asset Management Fluor Corporation Halcrow
Hilti Hochtief International Federation of Inspection Agencies
ISIS Merck Motorola
Norsk Hydro Pfizer PricewaterhouseCoopers
Rio Tinto SGS Sika
Skanska SNC Lavalin TRACE
Individuals and Other Donors
William F. Biggs (USA) Hartmut Fischer (Germany) Arnesto Gonçalves Segredo (The Netherlands)
Basel Institute on Governance (Switzerland) Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE USA) Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG Germany)
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Fondation Pro Victimis (Switzerland) Gesamtverband Kommunikationsagenturen (GWA Germany)
KPMG IHK Frankfurt (Germany) Lahmeyer International
Ministry for Foreign Affairs Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade New Zealand (NZAID) Partners of the Americas (USA)
Stockholm International Water Institute (Sweden) The World Bank (IBRD)

Source: [8]

Affiliations

See Also

Contact, References and Resources

Websites

Transparency International Secretariat
Alt-Moabit 96
10559 Berlin
Tel. +49-30-3438 20-0
Fax +49-30-3470 3912
Principal: www.transparency.org
Ireland: transparency.ie

Contact

Resources

References

  1. ↑ About Us, About Tranparency International UK, Transparency International, Accessed 29-June-2009
  2. ↑ Bolaji Abdullahi, Bribery Scandal Rocks Transparency International, thisdayonline.com, 16-November-2004, Accessed 24-June-2009
  3. ↑ Jeremy Pope, Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader, Sun2Surf, 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009
  4. ↑ Jeremy Pope, Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader, Sun2Surf, 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009
  5. ↑ Promoting Revenue Transparency (Accessed: 23 May 2008)
  6. ↑ Calvin Tucker, Seeing through Transparency International, The Guardian, Comment is Free, 22 May 2008.
  7. ↑ [1]
  8. ↑ [2]
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