At Last NZ ratifies UN Convention Against Corruption but is this an empty gesture or will corruption be dealt with seriously and not just concealed like it has been in the past ? Time will tell .
We fear that it will be business as usual in the Axminster system operated in NZ where corruption is habitually swept under the carpet.
News of the ratification received virtually no publicity at all instead we had a video and an article of a South Auckland man finding a live caterpillar in supermarket salad bag. Those of us who have grown up with fresh vegetables know that this a possibility if you don’t like bugs in your food go for GE .
So what are we going to do now that the necessary law changes have been made are we going to ignore them and continue to allow the courts to silence those who have asked lawyers to act according to law ? ( more on that later ) .
We are still asking questions with regards to the former crown law lawyer who is now acting in a situation of conflict of interest by turning a blind eye to the corruption of the animal welfare institute of New Zealand a fictional organisation which was given wide law enforcement powers because no one checked.
And transparent International New Zealand what are you going to do? provide more statistics to show how well we do while ignoring the elephant in the room ? we must keep the perception alive imagine if people were to embrace reality ? Disaster !
More to come in the mean time here are some links so that you can investigate what the ratification of the UN convention against corruption should mean .
The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) is a multilateral convention negotiated by members of the United Nations. It is the first global legally binding international anti–corruptioninstrument.
read about the convention here
Text of the United Nations Convention against Corruption English
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| New Zealand 8 | 10 Dec 2003 | 1 Dec 2015 |
The United Nations Convention against Corruption (from this link)
The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (external link) requires countries to take action in both the public and private sector to prevent corruption.
New Zealand signed the convention in 2003. It creates:
- arrangements to strengthen international co-operation
- arrangements to prevent the transfer of funds obtained through corruption
- ways of monitoring a country’s compliance with the convention.
The convention requires countries to criminalise corrupt behaviour such as:
- bribery and embezzlement of public funds
- trading in influence
- concealment and laundering of the proceeds of corruption.
When dealing with the proceeds of corruption, a country must be able to trace, freeze, seize and confiscate those proceeds.
New Zealand is compliant with most of the convention’s provisions. The Ministry of Justice is working on the final necessary steps to bring New Zealand into full compliance.
| United Nations Convention against Corruption Tools and Publications: |
Resource Guide on Strengthening Judicial Integrity and Capacity
Self-assessment of the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption |
The impact of the Neil Wells drama for West Auckland is that the same pattern of operating still continues. None of our large expenditures are projects that are tendered, costed and outsourced. They go into trusts with a group of trustees that include, west auckland politicians, coucnil staff/contractors, local MP’s issues assistants, and a handful of trusted people picked by those in power. When the conflicts of interest are hidden (eg they’ve taken there conflict off the charitable company website, off the council website, off their conflicts of interest” the elected person votes to give that organisation a partnering contract. But the person is still a trustee on the charities website. So it appears they have just hidden the conflict. Auditor choses not to investigate. Co Chair of Communit Waitakere and Ecomatters is David Kenkel. Catharina Kenkel was (until a month ago) the Mayors advisor on local initiatives, and ex – auditor generals office local government auditor. So Yeah…………I guess they think it’s all ok. This is hard out communism when the government controls everything – The decisions but also the contracts and money and communications (multiple websites with party aligned messages) that come from these trusts. So over it. I feel sad for West Auckland and sad, it’s been a real eye opener and changed the way I feel about who NZ is as a country. There really is no watchdog or whistleblowing authority willing to act.
By: Concerned Westy on December 10, 2015
at 9:30 am