• Journalists Giannina Segnini and Ernesto Riverareported on corruption during public biddings.As a result, two former presidents of Costa Rica went to prison and a third one was investi-gated.

• Christine Romans, a U.S. correspondent for CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, has reported extensively onCEO compensation and conflict of interest in company boards. Ms Romans has investigatedthe collapse of numerous corporate scams andreported on corruption from the point of viewof the investor. She has exposed misdealings inthe mutual fund industry.

• Sua Rimoni Ah Chong, former Controller and ChiefAuditor in Samoa, was threatened when heexposed financial crime at the highest levels of government. From 1992 to 1995 Mr Ah Chong refused to authorize illegal payments toCabinet Ministers. In 1994 his annual report toParliament implicated 6 out of 13 ministers inimproper activities and payments.

• Journalist Abdul Coulibaly devoted 10 years of his life to the fight against corruption in Senegal. MrCoulibaly is the head of the first Senegalese pri-vate press group. He is an outspoken contribu-tor who has brought to light financial scandals,embezzlement cases and irregularities in publiccontracting. In 2003 he published a book on thegovernment's poor governance practices.

• Khairransyah Salman is an auditor at the SupremeAudit Agency (BPK) in Indonesia. Mr Salmanrevealed grand corruption in the procurementactivities of the General Electoral Commission.He is currently in a witness protection pro-gramme with the Corruption EradicationCommission (KPK).

His cooperation with the KPK enabled theCommission to uncover a US$ 2.1 million scandal in the General Electoral Commissioninvolving all of its members.

• Jana Dubovcova, Chief Justice of the DistrictCourt of Banska Bystrica in central Slovakia,rocked the judicial establishment when she ini-tiated a corruption survey in her own court. Thefindings revealed that nearly one-third of peo-ple passing through the courts had encounteredcorruption. The council of Slovak judges calledupon the Minister of Justice to dismiss her asChief Justice but the Minister refused to do so.She also took the lead with the introduc-tion of a new judicial management sys-tem, whereby judges are randomlyassigned to cases. Since the new systemhas been in place, the number of casessolved within three months of beingfiled has increased by 70 per cent.

• Dr. Peter Schönhöfer, pharmacology profes-sor and co-editor of the independentGerman drugs bulletin Arznei-Telegram,is a resolute critic of corruption by certain pharmaceutical companies.Corrupt practices include paying fees to insert non-essential drugs on lists ofapproved drugs and falsifying scientificdata in publications. Mr Schönhöfer has oftenhad to defend his critical opinions in court buthas never lost a case or had to retract anystatements. He has demanded full disclosure of links between the pharmaceutical industryand the health care system in order to curb corruption.

www.unodc.org

Making a difference in the fight against corruption

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