Pacific Centre

Information and Experience Sharing Seminar on Public Service Ethics and Accountability

The Fiji Government through the Public Service Commission with support from the UNDP Pacific Centre, the University of the South Pacific (USP), the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and the Fiji Chapter of Transparency International (TI-Fiji), organized the “Information and Experience Sharing Seminar on Public Service Ethics and Accountability” held in Raffles Tradewinds Convention Centre, Lami, Fiji from 28 – 30 August 2006.

The seminar aimed:

• To help participants recognize the roles that improved ethics and accountability play in minimizing corruption, the link between improved governance and effective service delivery and to help them motivate and guide their staff in preventing corruption in the workplace;

• To provide the participants with an opportunity to share practical experiences in strengthening public ethics and accountability in their respective countries and use these as basis for formulating and implementing more effective ethics, accountability and anti-corruption related policies and programs; and

• To facilitate sharing of experiences and promote partnership and networking in the public services of the Pacific Island Countries, with the discussion of initiatives and reforms that may be undertaken by the participants through collaboration.

A total of 30 participants attended the seminar: thirteen participants from Fiji Islands, five from Papua New Guinea, five from Samoa, four from Solomon Islands and three from Vanuatu. These senior officials and policy makers came from the following sectors: government organizations representing the Public Services Commission, Auditor-General’s office, Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of Finance; non-government (NGOs), PIFS and UNDP country offices.

Dr. Denis Osborne, Governance Adviser and Commissioner Mary-Ann Fernandez-Mendoza of the Philippine Civil Service Commission, were engaged by UNDP to prepare materials based on the UNDP ‘PARAGON’ module for ‘Public Service Ethics and Accountability’ and use these to lead interactive action-oriented sessions. Ma. Antonina Ortega, Governance Specialist of the UNDP Pacific Sub-Regional Centre (UNDP-PSRC) joined them in facilitating the seminar. Professor Graham Hassal of the University of South Pacific and Ms. Suliana Siwatibau of the PCPI chaired and moderated the open fora for case study presentations of Fiji and Samoa, respectively.

Relevance of the seminar to the Pacific Islands

As mentioned by the press, the Forum Secretariat reported that over the last 50 years there is a steady economic growth in the Pacific Islands. Despite this encouraging report, growth and development has to be contextualized within the principle of equity where all citizens benefit. However, corruption does exactly the opposite. It undermines better delivery of services and distorts policies that tend to favour only a few.

Key messages of the seminar include promotion of ethics and accountability as a manager’s role; building people’s trust as the aim of anti-corruption work and pushing for more ethical government and that there are lessons to learn from each other.

The advisers/facilitators as well as the organizers considered the seminar as an avenue where anti-corruption stakeholders are given the opportunity to deepen perspectives and bring about better understanding of issues they face in the light of changing demands on the public sector vis-à-vis peculiarities of their respective country situations. The seminar opens up opportunity to identify specific and practical initiatives that can be undertaken and monitored at the national and sub-regional levels.

Fiji's former Minister of Justice Honorable Senator Qoroniasi Bale in his inaugural address spoke of corruption as a serious problem, of ‘widespread concern’ about public ethics and accountability, the changing agenda for public sector reforms, promotion of ethical conduct in management practices and the importance of networks and shared experience.

Mr. Garry Wiseman, Coordinator of the Pacific Centre, acknowledged the partners of UNDP and spoke of widespread concern about corruption. He highlighted the role that civil society plays in fighting corruption. He also underscored the importance of looking at a number of issues other than corruption in ensuring better public sector accountability and management.

Expectations from the participants revealed that they are concerned with not just knowing and understanding corruption, but also on how to prevent and reduce it. They expected the facilitators to provide as much information as possible on experience elsewhere in addressing this problem. There was a consensus of the need to come up with concrete and doable recommendations after the three-day seminar. Some participants also viewed the seminar as an opportunity to secure materials which they can use to train others, to implement an ethics program in their respective organizations and to get the support of national and international institutions working on anti-corruption for their programs.