In the
first meeting of the national team for drafting the National Action
Plan for Enhancing Transparency and Integrity which was held on
18/9/2008 in the Ministry of Planning in Ramallah, the minister of
planning assigned a technical committee to fill the UNCAC
self-assessment checklist to identify the gaps in local legislations
and policies as a first step in preparing for the National Action
Plan.
The meeting
which was opened and run by Dr. Samir Abdullah, Minister of Planning
and team leader, discussed the main aspects to be included in the
action plan and the possibility of adding more members to the
national team, such as, academics and anti corruption activists from
the civil society.
Dr. Samir
Abdullah, stressed the importance of developing a national plan for
combating corruption that will address the Palestinian legislations,
policies and institutional structure and that will develop an
awareness program for the Palestinian society.
It was
approved by the national team to assign a subcommittee to work on
the UNCAC self-assessment checklist. In addition, another committee
was formed to work on the terms of reference for the national action
plan.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the Ministry of
Finance, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Education, the
Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice, General Prosecution,
the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, the State Audit and
Administrative Control Bureau, Capital Market Authority and the
Coalition for integrity and accountability (AMAN)- which was
appointed as the secretariat for the national team and the host for
the meetings of the 2 committees.
It is worth
mentioning that the formation of the national team came in the
aftermath of AMAN’s recommendation and efforts which were crowned in
the Council of Minister’s resolution No 18/68/12 on Aug 18, 2008.
