Kyrgyz Republic must pursue systemic anti-corruption reform and strengthen its Agency for Prevention of Corruption, says OECD

The Kyrgyz Republic should strengthen the rule of law and step up its fight against corruption, according to a new report by the OECD Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The report (English / Russian) analyses the progress made by the Kyrgyz Republic to put in place the recommendations made by the OECD during their last review in 2004. Among its findings are:

• Without delay, Kyrgyzstan must bring its legislation into compliance with the UN Convention against Corruption, which it has ratified in 2005;
• Urgent measures are needed to strengthen the Kyrgyz Agency for Prevention of Corruption, which was created in 2005, but remains extremely weak and unable to fulfil its mandate. Special attention should be paid to ensuring strong leadership, professional training of staff, focusing on the main mandate to prevent corruption, and developing cooperation with other public agencies, international and donor organisations;
• Major improvements are needed to ensure coordination between the law-enforcement agencies responsible for fighting corruption;
• Financing of political parties and election campaigns is virtually non-existent in Kyrgyzstan; special attention is needed to ensure that the budget finance or illicit funds are not used to promote political corruption.

The report also highlighted progress made by the Kyrgyz authorities. The Kyrgyz Republic was the first country in Central Asia to establish a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and has the most progressive anti-money laundering legislation in the region. However efforts must continue to strengthen the capacity of the FIU to deal with the growing number of reports about suspicious transactions and the legislation needs further amendments to bring it in full compliance with international standards.

Public authorities responsible for public procurement are well aware of the need to prevent corruption in this sphere, and have introduced a number of useful measures; they recognise however that some issues remain problematic, like purchases from single source following ad-hoc decisions of the government. A number of measures were introduced to ensure transparency and competitiveness in the system of recruitment of public servants, but it remains important to ensure its universal and consistent application. The authorities appear open to co-operation with civil society but this work needs to become systematic and substantial.

The report (with full assessment of progress and ratings to each recommendation) is available at the ACN web site www.oecd.org/corruption/acn. As other countries, the Kyrgyz Republic will be invited to report on further steps to implement the recommendations at the following ACN meetings in 2008.

For more information, please contact the OECD’s Media Division (tel. +33(0)1 45 24 97 00) or Olga Savran, ACN Manager (tel. +33(0)1 45 24 13 81).