Advisory note COVID-19 and Corruption in the Pacific / Why media freedom in Myanmar matters to business / Former senior provincial official in south China indicted for bribery

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COVID-19 and Corruption in the Pacific (Advisory note). “COVID-19 calls for immediate action. What is required is a health response coupled with measures to tackle the profound social and economic dimensions of this crisis. Income losses are expected to exceed US$220 billion in developing countries, and this will reverberate across societies, severely impacting education and human rights worldwide. In order to avoid a global economic collapse and stave off a potential depression, Member States have taken emergency measures to provide an economic safety net for citizens and businesses in distress. This has resulted in relaxed safeguards by trading compliance, oversight and accountability for speed of response and achievement of rapid impact, in turn creating opportunities for corruption to thrive. The Pacific is no exception to this.” 

UNDP / UNODC: https://www.pacific.undp.org/content/pacific/en/home/library/eg/covid19-and-corruption-in-the-pacific.html 

 

Why media freedom in Myanmar matters to business (Opinion). “Businesses that care about combatting corruption and creating a level-playing field where their competitors are required to comply with labour, safety and environment rules, should welcome and support investigative journalism. They might even want to alert journalists when they have suspicions of corrupt or anti-competitive activity, or poor environmental practices, and brief them off-the-record. With the support of the media, they can often pressure the regulator to act.” 

 

 

Former senior provincial official in south China indicted for bribery. “Zhang Qi, a former senior official of south China's Hainan Province, has been indicted on charges of taking bribes, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said Thursday. Zhang, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and former secretary of the CPC Haikou municipal committee, was accused of taking advantage of his various former positions to seek profits for others and illegally accepting vast sums of money and gifts in return, the SPP said in a statement. 

Xinhua: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-04/30/c_139020642.htm

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