CENTRAL ANTI-CORRUPTION BUREAU always in the interest of Poland Fighting corruption also means prevention, education and protection - News

For 17 years, the International Anti-Corruption Day, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 58/4 of 31 October 2003, has been observed on 9 December, commemorating the ratification by the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption from 9 to 11 December 2003 in Merida, Mexico. 

On that day, the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau is presenting a new publication titled 'Anti-Corruption Guidelines for Public Administration on Uniform Institutional Solutions and Rules of Conduct for Public Servants and Individuals Belonging to the PTEF Group', which was created as part of the implementation of two activities of the Government Anti-Corruption Programme for 2018-2020.

The publication addresses the management and employees of public administration. The idea behind the guidelines is to combine two key elements of effective corruption prevention, that is, appropriate regulations and organisational solutions as well as appropriate human attitudes. Pursuant to the CBA's recommendations, ensuring the realisation of tasks in the field of corruption prevention requires:

1. involvement of the management,
2. an assessment of the corruption risk,
3. creating a position for an employee in charge of anti-corruption issues within an institution,
4. obligatory and cyclical training for both the management and the employees,
5. development and implementation of a gift-giving policy, including a register of benefits,
6. effective and systematic self-assessment and monitoring of corruption threats.

An authority's anti-corruption policy should implement all the proposed components and approach them as a whole.

The publication emphasises the importance of raising civil servants' awareness of the principles of ethics, organisational culture and professional ethos. It demonstrates how to deal with conflicts of interest and corruption threats.

A separate chapter of the publication is devoted to recommendations for persons in the highest governmental executive functions at the national/central level on how to deal with corruption threats.

The CBA's task is not only to detect and combat corruption and economic crime but also, and perhaps above all, to prevent irregularities and protect state institutions against potential damage.

The Bureau conducts many preventive and educational activities, cooperating with national and international institutions in this area. To date, the CBA has issued over 60 publications, which are available in the form of e-books on the cba.gov.pl and anti-corruption.gov.pl websites. Only recently, another issue of the "Anti-Corruption Bulletin" and "Guidelines for the creation and implementation of effective compliance programmes in the public sector" have been published.

The CBA also provides anti-corruption training courses. So far, nearly 60 thousand people have participated in 1240 in-house courses. They were conducted, among others, for the executives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the University of Białystok, the Government Legislation Centre and the Office of Electronic Communications.

Online training courses are continued, available on a free, web-based platform at http://szkoleniaantykorupcyjne.edu.pl/. Since the beginning of its operation, over 230,000 people have completed the training. The platform offers 3 training modules in two language versions. It was presented at the 66th Plenary Meeting of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), as well as on the forum of the European Commission and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) seminar on the pro-social policy of law enforcement agencies and training techniques.  The platform has also become a model for e-learning training organised by the National Anti-Corruption Unit of Slovakia (NAKA).

During the difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CBA together with many municipalities all over the country organised a competition for children learning remotely, titled “What does it take to be honest?” The competition aimed to show children's perception of honesty and to promote the idea of honesty and ethical behaviour by promoting children's creativity.

We recommend reading the new publications and following the CBA activities on our websites and in social media.

Public Relations Division of the CBA