CBi was contracted by “Projet de Governance Economique” (PGE) to develop a business integrity pact for the private sector coalition against corruption (Coalition de secteur prive contre la corruption (CSPC) in Dakar Senegal. With the adverse effect of corruption on Foreign investment, the war against poverty, the fiscal capability of the government to fund projects and even the loses on the part of the private sector, PGE was established to advocate better business environment that will improve the investment climate. Hence the “Projet de Pacte d’integrite”, (Integrity Pact) funded by the World Bank.
The project commenced with the review of the Code of good governance for the private sector, the standards extracted from the clauses and provisions were harmonized. Once this was completed, a framework was created to show the relational interface between the various stakeholders in the integrity pact. The framework consists of –
The Oversight Team made up of various stakeholders including government, CSPC representatives and other independence participants in the Pact. The Pact will be managed by this board whose responsibility is to contract the assessors/certifier to assess participating company’s level of compliance to the standards of the code, then, certify their compliance level. In order to retain the participation of the private sector coalition participation, an accountability system was set up – compliance and certification system, consisting of 3 levels of compliance with each level being incentivized based on levels of implementation of the standards of the code. Level 1 – companies where Staff have been sensitized and trained on the Code; Level 11 – companies complying and enforcing controls in their systems; and level 111 – companies conforming to the code and improving systems.
CBI trained 10 assessors to assess private sector participating companies compliance to the standards of the code, certifying their levels according to the compliance system established, and apply appropriate incentives granted by the tax and customs administrations, or sanctions to the companies and to train the trainers.
In the framework, civil society organization (OSCs) will monitor, supervise the validity and authenticity of the operation of the pact, to ensure its integrity as well as serve as whistle blowers. The private sector coalition will be accountable to the public, citizens, civil societies and Ombudsman through the Civil Societies who will serve as the voice of reasoning to the government and the private sector coalition, while the reports of the civil societies will be monitored by the public, citizens and ombudsman.
Tax and Customs administrations have harmonized incentives to encourage Private sector (CSPC) Participation. CSPC will promote/market the adoption of the code by companies, even though the business community and business schools in Senegal.
The project was completed April, 2015.