Workshop

SAI-ACA Research Planning Workshop Documentation

eaaaca — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 07:49:30 +0000

SAI-ACA Research Planning Workshop Documentation

Dates

Thu, 03/31/2022 - 09:00 - Thu, 03/31/2022 - 16:30

eaaaca Mon, 12/06/2021 - 10:49

Location

South-Africa

Event Category

Workshop

Member Countries

Djibouti

The African Organization of English-speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) focuses on building the capacities of its members, for instance in the areas of regularity audit, performance audit, communication, leadership development, SAI independence, etc. The secretariat is hosted by the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA), has 24 full time staff. AFROSAI-E earlier emphasized their objective to build a relationship with EAAACA based on an initial recommendation from their technical partner GIZ. Such a relationship should be developed in the AFROSAI-E spirit of smart partnerships. The research proposal should be seen as the starting point to initiate the collaboration by addressing mutual concerns of SAIs and ACAs. The research also contributes to AFROSAI-E’s objective to strengthen their research outputs.

The East African Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (EAAACA) pointed out that at the Abu Dhabi (UNODC) conference in 2019, the discussions around strengthening the collaboration between SAIs and ACAs started. After the 2021 UNODC Sharm El Sheikh conference, EAAACA started developing a guideline for SAI-ACA collaboration. This document has been shared with AFROSAI-E and GIZ GFG in Africa. EAAACA also forms what is called the Asset Recovery Interagency Network in East Africa (ARIN-EA) which focuses on asset tracing and recovery. ARIN-EA also includes other relevant institutions such as financial intelligence units (FIUs), judiciary, public prosecutor’s offices, etc.

In Uganda, there is a tripartite collaboration between the SAI, the ACA (Inspectorate of Government – which also hosts the EAAACA secretariat) and procurement authority (PPDA). Due to the good collaboration in Uganda, EAAACA sees many benefits in strengthening the relationship between ACAs and SAIs.

The Conference of the State Parties (COSP) is the main policy making body of the United Nations Convention against Organized Crime. It gives policy guidance to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to develop and implement anti-corruption activities. At the 8th COSP in December 2019 in Abu Dhabi, a declaration was endorsed to enhance the collaboration between SAIs and Anti-Corruption Authorities (ACAs) to more effectively prevent and fight corruption (Resolution 8/13).

Against this backdrop, AFROSAI-E and GIZ developed a research proposal which aimed to assess the effectiveness of collaboration between SAIs and ACAs. This sould be done by examining the mechanism of referral of corruption related red flags in audit reports from SAIs to ACAs for follow up and investigation. The research would focus on six East-African countries which share membership in both, AFROSAI-E and EAAACA.

After AFROSAI-E, EAAACA and GIZ in earlier virtual exchanges mutually agreed that a deeper collaboration between their organizations generally and SAIs and ACAs specifically is desirable and necessary, it was agreed that a joint research on how such a collaboration could be set up in East Africa should be the starting point. However, all parties agreed that this initiative should be followed by medium- and long-term objectives, that ultimately result in a structured framework for regular and systematic collaboration.

Managing Financial Investigations (Intermediate) Virtual Programme

eaaaca — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 07:28:25 +0000

Managing Financial Investigations (Intermediate) Virtual Programme

Dates

Mon, 11/29/2021 - 08:00 - Fri, 12/10/2021 - 17:00

eaaaca Mon, 10/18/2021 - 10:28

Location

VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

Event Category

Workshop

We are pleased to invite your country to participate in the OECD Africa Academy for Tax and Financial Crime Investigation, Managing Financial Investigations (Intermediate) Virtual Programme. The course will be held via the online platform “Zoom” from 29 November to 10 December 2021. We are pleased to inform you that the OECD, through the support of key donors, is offering this programme free of charge.

Regional Training Workshop on Asset Recovery: Confiscation, Management and Virtual Assets Round II

eaaaca — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 06:32:47 +0000

Regional Training Workshop on Asset Recovery: Confiscation, Management and Virtual Assets Round II

Dates

Mon, 10/11/2021 - 08:00 - Fri, 10/15/2021 - 14:00

eaaaca Wed, 09/22/2021 - 09:32

Location

VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

Event Category

Workshop

Overview
The Greater Horn of Africa (GHoA) and eastern and southern Africa (ESA) region is a source, transit
and destination of existing, evolving and emerging multiple transnational criminal threats. The region
is faced with forms of serious organized crimes including trafficking of human beings (THB), smuggling
of migrants (SoM), drugs trafficking, proliferations and trading in small arms and light weapons
(SALW), crime against environment and money laundering (ML) among others. The Horn, eastern and
southern Africa is also faced with terrorism, violent extremism and financing of terrorism. The growing
nexus between terrorism and transnational organized crime (TOC) has complicated the security
challenges. The different forms of TOC in the region are generating significant amount of proceeds to
be laundered and enter the legitimate economy and/or possibly finance other crimes. Addressing
criminal asset to deprive criminals from illegally enriching themselves takes a priority in the fight
against crime and criminality.

Background
Transnational organized crimes generate hundreds of billions of US Dollars (USD). According to the
projection of the ILO (2014) report2, forced labour exploitation and forced sexual exploitation alone are
estimated to generate up to 150 billion USD in 2018 globally. Sub-Saharan Africa is believed to generate
about 13.1 Billion USD from forced labour exploitation only Organised criminals to a large extent are
motivated by financial and material benefit that is driven by a rational choice of being mindful of the
associated risks that makes it difficult to investigate/prosecute. Traditionally, the focus of law
enforcement is on investigating and prosecuting predicate offences. However, criminals are ready to
take risk of serving in prison sentences as far as their illicitly gained finance/asset is available to them
and their families to enjoy.

In this regard, it becomes important to focus on depriving criminals from
enjoying their illicit profits in addition to prosecuting predicate offences. Financial investigation and
asset confiscation are key interrelated measures necessary to deter organized crimes. That means, both
punishing perpetrators and tracking the proceeds are necessary to reduce the incentives for criminals to
commit crimes that produce proceeds. Therefore, law enforcement agencies and other relevant
authorities mandated to deal with proceeds generating crimes should prioritise to confiscate illegally
obtained assets.

Objective and Expected Results and Deliverables
The training aims to reinforce knowledge and skills on how to trace, investigate, seize/freeze,
recover/confiscate illegally obtained assets in general and the proceeds of THB and SoM in particular.
This training will detail technics and methods of asset investigation, confiscation and management with
a due emphasis to virtual assets.
The Workshop will also provide an opportunity to participants to share the good practices/experiences
and challenges among themselves to further enhance networking and information sharing on AR.
Participants will engage in intensive, stirring and motivating exercises and discussions that will promote
common understanding, working together and devise way forward on how to implement effective AR
system.
At the end of the Workshop, participants are expected to:

better understand the process of asset recovery and apply relevant techniques of AR required in each process;
Better apply methods and techniques of asset investigation and confiscation
Better understand the concepts, types and techniques of tracing, confiscation and management of virtual assets;
Better understand management of assets; and be exposed to and share good practices from the participating institutions and individuals. Through the above stated results expected to be achieved at individual level, the training Workshop, together with other interventions by the Project and others, is expected to contribute to:
Enhanced capacity on the deterrent effect of depriving perpetrators from their criminal gains through enhanced AR regime
Improved effectiveness of confiscation of proceeds of crimes contributing to increased value of confiscated assets

The following are key outputs or deliverables of the training:

Presentations, case studies and reference documents shared
List of participants disaggregated in gender, institutions and country
Participants end of course evaluation feedback report about achievability of the objective, expected results, methodology, organization, deliverables, quality of trainers, and satisfaction)
Main training report – technical – by NKE

Beneficiaries and Targets

Primary target beneficiaries of this Workshop are asset recovery and law enforcement (investigative and prosecution) agencies of the target countries
Expected participants in this Workshop are those working in the above agencies who are directly working on AR or anticorruption, asset investigation and AR prosecutions depending on the national settings. About 40 participants are expected from all the beneficiary countries of the GHoA and ESA. Participants are required to have first degree level higher educational background, good command of English language, practical experience of 2 years or above in the field.

The trainees are expected to be highly motivated and committed to learn and share
experiences.

Investigation Techniques for use in the tracing & recovery of the proceeds of crime

eaaaca — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 10:47:52 +0000

Investigation Techniques for use in the tracing & recovery of the proceeds of crime

Dates

Mon, 07/26/2021 - 08:00 - Fri, 07/30/2021 - 13:00

eaaaca Thu, 07/22/2021 - 13:47

Location

VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

Event Category

Workshop

Regional workshop on public procurement and financial investigations

eaaaca — Wed, 26 May 2021 09:49:38 +0000

Regional workshop on public procurement and financial investigations

Dates

Tue, 06/22/2021 - 08:00 - Fri, 06/25/2021 - 17:00

eaaaca Wed, 05/26/2021 - 12:49

Location

VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

Event Category

Workshop

The two first days (22 and 23 June) will be on public procurement and the two last days (24 and 25 June) will be on financial investigations.

For the workshop on public procurement: The professions that would receive the most would be Anti-Corruption Agency investigators, auditors, or inspectors performing work related to allegations of corruption/fraud in public procurements. Also, benefiting in this portion of the training would be National Audit staff performing oversight work in the country's public procurement, and members of the public procurement profession responsible for auditing, investigating or in contract compliance when a concern of corruption/fraud has been raised.

For the workshop on policies and procedures for financial investigations: the general profile of the participants would be anti-corruption authorities’ investigators and other senior employees likely to be involved in the writing of policies-procedures. Such persons should of sufficient standing in the organization to carry authority, allocate resources and call upon administrative support. Attended form partner agencies which are involved in anti-corruption investigations would also be welcome.