A daily scrapbook of stories from major news media on corruption, bribery and financial crimes
Money Trail 18 December
BEIJING - Government officials should be given “conditional pardons” for corruption charges if all bribes are repaid and accounted for, according to an academic at Beijing’s top training school for the Communist Party's anti-graft cadres, the South China Morning Post reports. In an interview with the Beijing News on Monday, Li Yongzhong, an associate dean at the China Academy of Supervision and Discipline Inspection, said the special pardon would give officials a chance to make a fresh start and provide them with the impetus to support anti-corruption measures, the newspaper said.
BRASILIA - Brazil's Supreme Court has concluded the trial over one of the biggest political corruption scandals in the country's recent history, the BBC reports. Twenty-five people were convicted for setting up a scheme that used public funds to pay coalition parties for political support. Several were top politicians of the governing Workers Party (PT). In its final session, the court ruled that three congressmen involved in the scandal would lose their seats, the broadcaster said.
MONTREAL, Canada – Montreal mayor Michael Applebaum says he’ll announce the composition of a new committee that will recommend measures to counter and prevent corruption in the city within days, The Montreal Gazette reports. The committee will comprise councillors and representatives of city departments, such as the legal, infrastructure, water and computer departments and the comptroller-general’s office, Applebaum was reported as saying.
SYDNEY - The auditor-general of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) should be given the power to inspect all non-government organisations (NGOs) that receive government funding, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reports a corruption watchdog as saying. The recommendation is one of 18 contained in an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) proposal, released on Tuesday, which aims to reduce the risk of NGOs acting corruptly. More than 2000 NGOs share billions of dollars of government funding each year, but not all of these fall within the jurisdiction of the ICAC and the NSW auditor-general, the AAP said.
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