Wednesday, 30 September 2009 00:12
SINGAPORE - Seventeen large organizations with businesses in Southeast Asia took part in the Governance and Anti-Corruption Conference 2009, declaring their commitment towards clean business practices for the first time.
"By signing this declaration, we publicly affirm that Siemens is continuously improving our established compliance program in dialogue with our partners, and is assuming a leading role in the field of compliance and transparency,” said Lothar Herrmann, president and CEO of Siemens Pte Ltd, whose firm was one of the participants.
“Compliance is an integral part of our business, and enables us to conduct business based on principles of integrity and responsibility - as acknowledged by the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index."
Getting serious about corruption
Under the declaration, the signatory organisations announced their intention to comply with all applicable laws, regulations and provisions on corruption and unfair competition to promote a clean business environment.
shanmugam.gifIn addition, they intend to install processes that will ensure their respective units, affiliates, intermediaries and subcontractors to comply with the before mentioned laws, regulations and provisions.
“Corruption is a cancer that has been eating away at many societies in the world,” K Shanmugam, Singapore Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs said in his keynote address.
“It leaches out the structures and institutions of states and allows a small number of individuals to suck the blood out of the corpus of a state. Everyone, both in the public and private sector, has responsibility to fight this and safeguard integrity and create a clean corruption free environment.
“This anti-corruption and compliance declaration among private companies, civil society and public institutions is a useful step towards good governance and corruption prevention.”
250 delegates
The theme of the regional conference for this year was “Crisis, Stimulus & Integrity”. Organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, it was attended by about 250 delegates including those from leading businesses and institutions, as well as those from government, academia and public sector.
The conference focused on looking at the challenges facing the public and private sectors in Asia in the areas of governance and corruption prevention.
Preceding the public conference was a closed-door roundtable discussion, whereby 60 regional discussants from the institutions, government, academia and private sectors discussed and shared information on the best current practices and examples of corruption prevention in the ASEAN region.
“The crisis makes us focus on the need for growth and so much public funds are being spent on infrastructure and generating domestic demand,” said Simon Tay, chairman of SIIA.
“Yet, these stimulus expenditures need to be managed with good governance and integrity. There is a need to re-emphasize the commitment to good governance and anti-corruption. “
Therefore, SIIA is taking the lead to initiate a discussion and public outreach conference on these urgent issues in ASEAN, not just with governments and experts but also with the private sector.” - Malaysian Mirror
Last Updated on Wednesday, 30 September 2009 19:11
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