SDA Presents: Sharpening the Teeth of Defense Budget Watchdogs

September 17, 2013

Sorting fact from fiction is essential to the future of Europe’s defence equipment industry. Now, Transparency International has produced a report "Watchdogs?" that analyses the strengths and weaknesses of legislative oversight in defence and security. As the economic crisis bites deeper, what are the economic consequences of secret deals and expenditures, and are parliaments equipped to curtail them? Six of the fourteen countries most vulnerable to corruption are in the Middle East; will corruption in their defence procurement add to the turmoil in the region, and how does the lack of parliamentary oversight contribute to its problems? With 85% of the countries examined by Transparency International lacking effective scrutiny of defence purchases, what can countries do to improve their situation, and how can countries assessed to have low corruption risk levels offer best practices to others? Have NATO and EU programmes designed to fight corruption begun to yield results, and how do they dovetail with work being undertaken by parliamentarians?

 

Speakers Include:

  • Abdesselam Aboudrar, Chairman of Central Authority for Corruption Prevention of Morocco. Chairman of the Arab Anti-corruption and Integrity Network.
  • PN Member Ana Gomes, Member of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, European Parliament
  • Susan Pond, Head of the Building Integrity Programme, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
  • Mark Pyman, Programme Director of the International defence and security counter-corruption programme, Transparency International UK
  • Avgustina Tzvetkova, Former Vice Minister of Defence, Bulgaria, Senior Consultant, Defence and Security Programme and Transparency International UK

Moderated by Giles Merritt, Director, Security & Defence Agenda

 

Photo by EnvironmentBlog.

 

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