Show Index: gdi
The Tunisian anti-corruption landscape has developed significantly since 2011. Tunis has created anti-corruption institutions, issued stronger legislation on public access to information and protection of whistle-blowers, and proposed legislation on declaring assets and probing illicit enrichment. This marks positive progress that should be both applauded and capitalised upon.
Yet the defence sector – which generally enjoys strong public trust – has not received the same scrutiny. Research indicates that it is often exempted, on the basis of national security, from significant reform. Tunisian defence spending has been rising, with an increase in expenditure of almost 64% from 2011 to 2016. But transparency and integrity structures have not kept pace. This presents an urgent challenge. Secrecy and weak oversight are the breeding ground of corruption. And corruption undermines defence institutions, reducing their capability to respond to threats, and leads to wasteful spending. With a national emergency declared and rising defence spending, strengthening defence integrity and tackling weaknesses leading to corruption should be a priority for the Tunisian government.
Ahead of presidential elections in Egypt, our new report analyses the role and growing economic power of the military.
This report is currently unavailable to download. It will be re-uploaded as soon as possible.
Weaponising Transparency has found that unpublished defence budgets and arms procurements are still open to abuse by corrupt officials seeking to benefit from the conflict with Boko Haram and launder stolen money abroad. Many deaths in the conflict have occurred while the military lacks vital equipment, critical training, and morale.
Since 2011, 50,000 people have lost their lives in the conflict with Boko Haram, while millions have been displaced. An estimated US $15bn has been stolen from the defence sector and billions of Naira spent annually without clear rationale. While President Buhari has made significant moves to take on the secretive and powerful defence sector, the pace of reform in the MOD is too slow and lacks any strategy.
In this study Transparency International’s London-based Defence and Security Programme explores in some detail how security assistance programmes fared in an environment affected by corrupt practices and the nexus of corruption and criminality. The case study here is security assistance provided to the Malian Army by the U.S. and France in 2001-2012, i.e. prior to the coup in which units of the Malian Army deposed a sitting president. Our goal is to unpack the impact corrupt practices can have on the success of specific security assistance programmes and to start a conversation on how these risks can be addressed.