Corruption is complex phenomenon and is getting sophisticated with increasing dynamism and interconnectedness of political economies, technological advancement and modernization. Increasingly, developing countries as well as developed countries are struggling to recover illicit assets and the proceeds of money laundering and corruption. This increases the challenges for the contemporary law enforcement agencies to detect, investigate and prosecute corruption cases, as well as to freeze, confiscate and recover the proceeds from such crimes.
Towards this, under the aegis of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in May 2017, the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Basel Institute on Governance (BIG) of Switzerland is conducting a five-day training on “Financial Investigation and Asset Recovery” in Thimphu from 13-17 November, 2017.
The opening ceremony of the session was graced by Dasho Penjore, Governor of the Royal Monetary Authority. Hon’ble Chief Guest in his key note address empathised that fighting corruption is a serious challenge worldwide but though the level of corruption in Bhutan is relatively low as indicated by the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, we cannot afford to be complacent. Emphasising on the training “recovery of illicit assets and the proceeds of crime, is becoming a common phenomenon and is also drawing criticism from delayed justice and also the delay in recovery of assets involved”.
While three rounds of the same trainings were conducted for a total of 79 participants in 2014 and 2015, this fourth round is being conducted in keeping with positive feedback received from the participants of the past trainings. By the end of this training, 114 professionals from 19 agencies would have been trained; a total of 35 participants from 17 agencies (Judiciary, RAA, RBP, RMA, OAG, BNLI, DRC, BNCA, 8 Financial Institutions and ACC) will be participating in the 4th round of this training.
As in the earlier training, the training aims to enhance capacity of enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute complex (including international) corruption and money laundering cases and recover stolen assets with better understanding of costs and risks of corruption. The training is also expected to foster closer understanding and coordination between relevant law enforcement agencies and also the financial institutions.
The training is being conducted by three experts from International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) of BIG. Other than Bhutan, these trainers from ICAR of BIG has developed and delivered training programmes in financial investigation and asset recovery to practitioners all over the world for more than ten years.
The training is funded by Royal Monetary Authority and the UNDP as part of its on-going support to ACC.