Namibia is set to undergo a country corruption review by the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).
The review process covers five main areas that relate to preventive measures, criminalization and law enforcement, international cooperation, asset recovery, and technical assistance and information exchange against Corruption.
Tanja Santucci and Louise Portas will facilitate the review on behalf of the UNCAC secretariat, which is being carried out by governmental experts from Uganda and France.
“While some progress has been made in the implementation of the Convention, there are areas for improvement,” said Santucci.
“As with all countries, the review process is intended mainly to assist the States under review to more fully implement the Convention. As such the observations may shed light on successes and good practices in implementation and also on areas where perhaps more work may be needed. In many cases the suggestions for improvement are in areas already identified by the Government Itself and may encourage or support work and reforms that are already underway.”
She noted that the review will serve as a useful opportunity to assess progress and take stock of anti-corruption efforts in Namibia and identify further areas of priority.
The report covers areas on preventative anti-corruption policies and practices, preventative and anti-corruption body, public sector, code of conduct for public officials, financial disclosures and reporting, public procurement policies, measures to prevent money-laundering, prevention and detection of transfers of proceeds of crime.
Furthermore, it looks into financial intelligence units, special cooperation, measures for direct recovery of property, mechanisms for recovery of property through international cooperation in confiscation and international cooperation for purposes of confiscation.
Paulus Noa, Director-General of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), said the findings and recommendations will help Namibia to improve and maximize on the implementation of the Convention.
“The findings and recommendations will be a learning experience for Namibia, because we are keen to learn from good practices of other authorities in our bid to improve on our domestication of the Convention. For Namibia, it is not only about domestication, but most importantly about implementation. The review thus presents an opportunity for improvement,” said Noa.
Since Namibia signed the UNCAC in 2003 and ratified it in 2004, the country has participated as one of the reviewers during the first review cycle on Chapter III, Criminalization and Law Enforcement and Chapter IV, International Cooperation, of UNCAC.
Namibia together with Fiji reviewed Timo Leste, whereas Namibia was also reviewed by Canada and Ethiopia.
Noa said when the second review cycle commenced, Namibia was among the first States Parties selected to conduct the second review.
“Namibia together with Australia reviewed Liechtenstein. The recommendations which came out of the Namibia Review Report remarkably informed the governance reforms that have been adopted since then,” he said.
