Financial Transparency

Статья на Fergananews.com о докладе «Хлопковый сектор Узбекистана: Финансовые потоки и распределение ресурсов», который проливает свет на политическую экономию производства хлопка в Узбекистане, показывая финансовый интерес политической элиты Узбекистана в сохранении системы принудительного труда в этом секторе экономики.

This book critically engages with the idea of transparency whose ubiquitous demand stands in stark contrast to its lack of conceptual clarity. The book carefully examines this notion in its own right, traces its emergence in Early Modernity and analyzes its omnipresence in contemporary rhetoric. Today, transparency has become a catchword outplaying other Enlightenment values like empowerment, sincerity and the notion of a public sphere. In a suspicious manner, transparency is entangled in the discourses on power, surveillance, and self-exposure. Bringing together prominent scholars from the emerging field of Critical Transparency Studies, the book offers a map of the various sites at which transparency has become virulent and connects the dots between past and present. By studying its appearances in today’s hyper-mediated economies of information and by linking it back to its historical roots, the book analyzes transparency and its discontents, and scrutinizes the reasons why it has become the imperative of a supposedly post-ideological age.

“Incessantly invoked as a necessary condition of all aspects of democratic life, transparency is being hailed as a top priority in public management, corporate business, and international relations. But the more we critically examine what transparency actually means, the more it emerges as an opaque, and perhaps even occluding, concept. By offering a bold and comprehensive picture of the new field of Critical Transparency Studies, this collection of essays is certain to become the standard reference for years to come.” (Giovanna Borradori, Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College, USA)

“This important collection historicizes and criticizes transparency, one of neoliberalism’s most ubiquitous norms. As the contributors draw out the normative presumptions of the concept, they alert us to its regulatory effects, its implications for surveillance and subjectivation. Rather than an ideal of democratic freedom, transparency mobilizes distrust and commands exposure. Crucial reading for anyone interested in critical assessment of our present values. ” (Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA, and author of Publicity's Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy, 2002)

Auditing is the unbiased examination of books of accounts of an entity to detect and prevent errors and fraud Where as corporate transparency is the relevant, timely and accurate information which is readily accessible. There is a linkage between Auditing and corporate transparency.

This study examines the implementation and effects of the inclusion of financial services in existing EU free trade and association agreements (FTAs) and, in particular, their impact on money laundering, tax evasion and avoidance. The opening analysis outlines the geopolitical and trade context, as well as the EU policy framework to combat money laundering, tax evasion and avoidance. It examines the effects of the ‘Panama Papers’ leaks; assesses the consequences of tax evasion and money laundering and their link to trade in Africa; evaluates the implementation of the EU-Central America Agreement; and provides a synthesis of the key findings and policy recommendations presented in the annexed study. The annexed expertise investigates the implementation and effects of financial services provisions in selected EU FTAs with third countries, with a particular focus on their propensity to curb money laundering, tax evasion and elusion. It concludes that the liberalisation of trade in goods and services with developing countries increases the threat of money laundering, and that it is therefore likely to contribute to an increase in illicit financial flows from developing countries to the EU. The study does not find conclusive statistical data to support a causal link between the EU FTAs that are in force and an increase in illicit financial flows. Nonetheless, the far-reaching commitments made by the EU and the developing countries in the selected EU FTAs regarding access to the markets for goods and services, including in the financial services sector, translate into such agreements significantly increasing trade openness, and hence also the threat of money laundering facing developing countries. To remedy these threats, the study provides a number of policy recommendations.

When individuals exchange gifts, social bonds are strengthened and reciprocity is created. If the gift and the reciprocation both come from private resources, it is clearly a gift. If what is reciprocated after a gift is given comes from an organization, or is a government resource rather than from " one's own pocket " then it is most likely a bribe. This study reviews the anthropological literature on gift giving and constructs a typology for examining the gift/bribe distinction in public administration. This classification helps distinguish analytically among different gift practices and clarify conceptual ambiguity of the terms gift and bribe.

Since the third amendment of the 1945 Constitution (2001), the roles and functions of BPK as the only external audit institution has strengthened to give greater power to examine the public accountability of public sector agencies under the Audit Law (2004). Since then, BPK has reformed its organization. How effective is the new audit legislations in delivering promised outcomes for improving the Indonesian public administration is still a big question.
This paper examines the reforms that have been conducted to improve the transparency of public financial and the accountability of the government in providing public services and furthermore to highlight some of the main features of the analysis, with particular emphasis on those aspects where clear differences have emerged in the practice of audit between the pre- and post-reform periods. The paper then briefly lists a number of recommendations that arise out of the research, before suggesting lines for further research.
The research process included a theoretical conceptual stage and the field research stage. The theoretical conceptual included a literature review that provided a background for study and disclosed the room for improvement in public sector auditing in Indonesia. Moreover, historical analysis of the Indonesia public sector auditing on the crucial time to provide insights into the process of development and change of public sector audits across the time in Indonesia. The field research explored primary and secondary data. In depth interviews conducted with auditors, the members of Parliement (central and local levels), and auditees (public sector employees).

Keywords: public sector auditing, financial transparency, accountability, performance, public sector reform, Indonesia.

This article aims to provide a conceptual framework for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to evaluate the appropriation of blockchain technology for their business needs and challenges. This conceptual framework aims to respond to the problem of increasing speculations surrounding the blockchain that is considered to be an absolute and innovative solution to many business related problems. However, this argument might not be realistic for SMEs despite this assumption. The main argument of the article is that SMEs should be skeptical while evaluating the appropriation of this technology for their business needs and they should follow a tailored approach whilst adopting it. Otherwise, the likelihood is high that a short-term and unstructured knowledge management process to adopt blockchain will end up with a waste of resources. The present paper conceptualizes an appropriation framework within nine factors namely, reduction of costs, internalization, digital representation of assets, unalterable data recording, network size, transparent and synchronized ledger, scalability, fair trade, and financing. Given the field's infancy state of development, the paper relies on a qualitative document analysis involving SME literature and extant literature and white papers of blockchain applications.

This report is a baseline assessment of social accountability in seven countries in the Arab World: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Yemen. “Social accountability” is a term first developed by the World Bank that describes the
range of actions and tools that citizens (civil society organisations, media, private sector or trade unions) use to hold public officials and public servants to account. In the context of the Arab Spring, the question is how are citizens demanding accountability of their leaders? The research focused on state-citizen relations and considered both demand side (citizen led) and supply-side (state) governance.

This study examined the policy conditions attached to 24 World Bank-financed program operations in 23 countries, many of which provide national budget (and sector-specific) support.  It sought to:

1) Ascertain the proportion of World Bank conditions (i.e., legally-binding measures) which make disbursal of loan and grant resources contingent upon approval of specific policies by a nation’s cabinet or legislature. 
2)  Ascertain the proportion of World Bank conditions which make disbursal of loan and grant resources contingent upon government adoption of “key policies” – commercialization and privatization, labor reform, trade reform and land reform- and financial management actions.
3) Compare the number and types of policy conditions and benchmarks (non-binding conditions) in two types of program operations:  the World Bank’s “solo” operations and the World Bank’s “collaborative” operations. 
4)  Identify problems with the new approach to conditionality represented by budget support operations, including the PAF.
5) greater transparency by aid providers and wider participation in shaping the conditions and benchmarks associated with program operations.

In a world where billion-dollar corruption and money laundering schemes can travel through developed countries’ financial institutions undetected, the only chance for any country’s authorities to successfully address financial crime is to apply cutting edge technology for crime detection. At the core of the fight against illicit financial flows is authorities’ ability to verify the identity of the beneficial owners who control the world’s companies and trusts. Applying advanced analytics and inter-connecting ownership registries is the only way to make sure legitimate businesses flourish, while preventing the abuse of legal vehicles that rob countries off their resources and erode trust in democracy and state institutions. This will also be good for real businesses. By helping businesses easily and effectively check their supply chains and the companies they work with business can better prevent sanctioning risks to their reputation for having engaged with the wrong people.

Section 1 of this report briefly reviews the concept and importance of beneficial ownership. It describes countries’ contradictory or insufficient measures in relation to beneficial ownership transparency needed to address illicit financial flows related to corruption, money laundering or the financing of terrorism. Section 2 refers to all the relevant data on beneficial ownership that should be collected in the first place to allow for verification. It summarises the definitions of beneficial ownership depending on the various types of legal vehicles and their combination. It lists all details that should be collected and it adds new innovative proposals for ensuring registered beneficial ownership is accurate and easier to verify. Section 3 and 4 are the core of this paper and describe the IT system that governments should establish to automatically cross-check and verify beneficial ownership information, both in terms of validity (section 3) as well as advanced analytics for redflagging purposes (section 4). Section 5 discusses issues relating to costs and sanctions for noncompliance.

Corruption is a major global financial problem with billions of dollars rendered lost or unaccountable annually. Corruption through contract fraud is often conducted by withholding and/or altering financial information. When such scandals are investigated by authorities, financial and legal documents are usually altered to conceal the paper trail. Smart contracts have emerged in recent years and appear promising for applications such as legal contracts where transparency is critical and of public interest. Transparency and auditability are inherent because smart contracts execute operations on the blockchain, a distributed public ledger. In this paper, we propose the Minimum Hybrid Contract (MHC), with the aim of introducing 1) auditability, 2) transparency, and 3) immutabil-ity to the contract's financial transactions. The MHC comprises an online smart contract and an o✏ine traditional legal contract. where the two are immutably linked. Secure peer-to-peer financial transactions, transparency, and cost accounting are automated by the smart contract, and legal issues or disputes are carried out by civil courts. The reliance on established legal processes facilitates an appropriate adoption of smart contracts in traditional contracts .

Kuijper, global business consultant, dean of the Duisenberg School of Finance in Amsterdam, and former Royal Dutch Shell executive, identifi es what she calls a new "star driver" shaping the global economy: the rapid and unstoppable decrease in the cost of information, also known as the "vanishing cost of information." This she calls transparency-"a state in which the cost of information is approaching zero or, equivalently, in which cheap connectivity is so abundant and easy, one might consider it infi nite." 1 From the perspective of critical geography, the concept of "transparency" is illusory. 2 On this point de Kuijper's own caveat, immediately following, is suggestive: My use of the word transparency is meant to emphasize the fact that information will travel instantly and without obstruction, equally clear and perceptible to everyone. I am not describing the sort of transparency that is demanded when critics insist that windows into business or government operations be held open in order to enforce accountability. 3

A primer on the Recognition of the Anti-Fraud Profession,
                                Spanish Version
Dr Haluk F GURSEL

The following is the Spanish translation of the award winning landmark
article.
In this work it is shown that, global firms are realizing that the anti-fraud
profession is an important component of risk measurement and avoidance.
Study reviews how recent risk-based management control systems are
hastening the development of specialized anti-fraud agents.
CEOs only have to read appropriate studies to see that the typical U.S.
organization loses an estimated 5 percent of its annual revenues to fraud, to begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. Applied to 2014 estimated Gross World Product of $74.16 trillion results in a projected potential total fraud loss of up to $3.7 trillion worldwide.
First act needed by Management is to acknowledge the overall
consequences of the fraud risk and fraud itself.
Fraud is a social phenomenon and constitutes a business risk. This analysis has shown that management needs to deal with this fraud risk with the help of trained anti-fraud professionals and auditors who will evaluate an entity's existing anti-fraud controls and structures and introduce needed procedures.
As countries come to accept the anti-fraud profession they could, as many do with audit professionals, codify regulations on many levels including minimum employment requirements.
It's evident that the 21st century is witnessing the emergence of the new
anti-fraud discipline, with management playing a decisive role. It's time to give this profession the recognition it deserves.
Dr Haluk F. GURSEL

Introducción al Reconocimiento Internacional del Nuevo Profesional
Anti-Fraude en la Administración
Dr. Haluk F. GURSEL*

En el siglo veinte, las actividades anti-fraude (reconocimiento, prevención, detección y análisis) fueron dejadas en manos de los auditores, por cuanto el riesgo de fraude se vería mitigado por el
uso del conocimiento del auditor. El siglo veintiuno, no obstante, es testigo de grandes cambios en ese comportamiento. En la actualidad se sabe que el conocimiento puramente contable no es suficiente para tratar los problemas relacionados con fraudes. Como consecuencia de ello, los sistemas administrativos contemporáneos están colaborando en el entrenamiento de agentes antifraude y sus profesiones vinculadas.

El Dr. Haluk F. GURSEL, presidente del Capítulo Suiza de la ACFE, opina que con la globalización, ha llegado el momento del reconocimiento mundial de la profesión y los profesionales anti-fraude.
Siguiendo los lineamientos de los modelos de control Administrativo contra riesgos tales como COSO/ERM, para cumplir con la responsabilidad principal de prevención, detección e investigación del fraude, la administración necesita personal calificado, un funcionario de riesgo de fraude quien deberá contar con un buen conjunto de cualidades contemporáneas. Si bien el conocimiento de un buen auditor puede contribuir a aprender las nuevas habilidades, se requiere un
conocimiento nuevo e independiente para convertirse en un profesional anti-fraude. Para combatir al fraude de la mejor manera, el Dr. Gursel está luchando por conseguir el establecimiento, la regulación y el desarrollo de una disciplina y profesión anti-fraude mediante la codificación de un marco legal necesario por parte de los entes reguladores nacionales en cada país.
Por ende, al igual que los auditores, los países contarán con un conjunto de requisitos de certificación para la profesión, que estarán reconocidos en documentos legales pertinentes. El trabajo y la función de dichos profesionales en la administración también deben estar regulados,
presentando, por ejemplo, los requisitos mínimos de la función de dichos profesionales en entidades de un tamaño dado.
El hecho de que la administración actual de la función de riesgo de fraude pueda ser asistida por una auditoria interna implica un compromiso, puesto que la profesión anti-fraude emergente no
está totalmente comprendida ni aceptada por todas las entidades, a la vez que el número de profesionales calificados no es suficiente para cumplir con todas las tareas. Una vez que la profesión alcance el nivel buscado, la función del auditor en las tareas relacionadas con fraudes
pasará del examen analítico a la evaluación de los procesos anti-fraude. La auditoria, entonces, tendrá la tarea de evaluar los programas establecidos por los profesionales anti-fraude.
(*) Dr. Haluk F. GURSEL es el Presidente del Capítulo Suiza de la ACFE y también es el Presidente del Consejo Suizo de Fraude Ocupacional. Para comentarios, su e-mail es [email protected] .

money as the mother's milk of politics", Jesse Unruh -a leading Californian politician of the 1960's ABSTRAK ransparansi dan Akuntabilitas dana kampanye sangat erat kaitannya dengan wacana mewujudkan pemilihan umum (pemilu) yang adil dan demokratis. Beberapa studi telah menunjukkan bahwa peserta pemilu di Indonesia semakin tidak transparan dan tidak akuntabel tentang pendanaan kampanyenya. Dalam pemilu 2004 dan 2009, partai politik masih menerima dana kampanye dari sumber yang tidak jelas identitasnya dan tidak jujur pada saat pelaporan kepada publik dan Komisi Pemilihan Umum (KPU). Hal ini sangat mungkin karena aktivitas pendanaan kampanye masih penuh dengan transaksi keuangan yang dilakukan secara tunai atau dengan kata lain, tidak melalui instrumen perbankan. Kondisi seperti itu, peserta pemilu dapat dengan mudah mendapatkan dana dari non-kader perseoranagn atau korporasi melebihi jumlah yang dibatasi oleh undang-undang. Hal ini bahkan lebih mengkhawatirkan jika uang yang masuk ke peserta pemilu adalah hasil kejahatan. Dengan demikian, pilihan untuk mengurangi bahkan melarang transaksi tunai dalam pendanaan kampanye sangat relevan untuk diimplementasikan. Hal ini dilakukan semata-mata untuk menutupi kelemahan dari aturan-aturan hukum yang ada dan juga untuk mendorong peserta pemilu lebih transparan dan akuntabel dalam pendanaan kampanyenya.

Over the past few years, public interest in the not-for-profit (NFP) sector has increased. Following NFP-related fund misappropriation scandals making news headlines across the world, concerns have been raised about the extent to which NFPs demonstrate financial accountability in their accounting disclosures. The Australian NFP sector has been no exception to these concerns. The Australian NFP sector is large and diverse with approximately 600,000 NFPs, including 56,894 economically significant NFPs. These economically significant NFPs contribute a total value added of $54.8 billion to the Australian national accounts, by engaging in a range of activities. The four largest NFP sub-sectors operating in Australia are education and research, culture and recreation, social services, and environment: combined, these four sub-sectors account for 69.4% of the economic contributions made by NFPs to the Australian economy and for 65.9% of the goods and services provided by the Australian NFP...

There are concerns that management and financial administration as well as transparency and accountability of religious organizations are still less than satisfactory, and do not meet the expectation of the society. This issue is more important in the province of Aceh, Indonesia in which this case study was conducted. The local government provides a reasonable amount of funds every year to support the activities of the Islamic religious organization, particularly for the Islamic Boarding Schools or called pesantrens. Even, the local government has established a special government agency to enhance the management of pesantren to undertake more effective management, either in teaching, learning or in financial management. Thus, the objective of this paper is to discuss the management and financial transparency of one of Islamic religious organizations in Indonesia. An overview of the case organization, management and financial transparency are also discussed in this paper. Several recommendations and conclusion are also provided.

Recent case law on the scope of professional secrecy for the supervisory authorities of the financial sector and on the measure of openness of their files highlights the lack of co-ordination among the silos of supervision and the absence of clear and uniform professional secrecy rules across the financial sector. The introduction of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) makes this situation more acute: notwithstanding a centralised system of banking supervision, different approaches may exist in respect of access to files, even when based on EU legislation. This contribution addresses the accountability of supervisory authorities and, notably the European Central Bank (ECB), from the perspective of access to supervisory files, as a prelude to possible follow-up proceedings for failing supervision. Recent judgments in the Altmann, Baumeister, Buccioni and UBS Europe cases slowly move the case law on supervisory secrecy towards more openness, long after Hillegom v Hillenius (1984). The judgments make us wonder whether the absence of legislative co-ordination and questionable drafting is being remedied by the judiciary. The variety of legislative provisions and relevant recent case law form the backdrop of our proposal to adopt a Regulation on professional secrecy for supervisory authorities in the financial sector, which would institute a single standard directly applicable across Member States and supervisory authorities.

The National Agricultural Market, through networking of the APMCs, provides electronic trading for different kinds of agricultural produce. Under e-NAM, all the trading is to be done through a digital platform as prescribed to ensure transparency in the transactions and provide a fair price to the farmers. The study was conducted in three APMCs of Uttar Pradesh to analyze the ground-level practices occurring in these APMCs and to assess the level of adoption of e-NAM. A considerable variation in the arrival and bidding prices obtained from the APMCs was found when compared with the data available on the agriculture market information system (Agmarknet).In this chapter, we thus propose blockchain-based infrastructure to facilitate a highly transparent and autonomous system to further strengthen the information system and enable the efficient application of government rules and regulations pertaining to agricultural transactions in the APMCs through the utilization of smart contracts.

In this article, we advance research on transparency by developing and validating a measure based on recent theoretical insights about its dimensionality. We find that transparency—defined as the perceived quality of information—is a three-dimensional construct consisting of perceived information disclosure, clarity, and accuracy. Evidence shows items associated with these dimensions can be aggregated into a single transparency construct. We also find that transparency (as an aggregate construct) is distinct from neighboring constructs such as informational justice and capable of predicting perceptions of the source’s trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity). Finally, we find evidence of measurement invariance between two commonly used referents of analysis, yielding confidence in the application of the proposed measure across research settings. We discuss implications of the new measure for research on transparency, the extension of the new measure to related research traditions, and the practical application of the new measure for managers interested in constructing and appraising transparent messages.

This study examines the implementation and effects of the inclusion of financial services in existing EU free trade and association agreements (FTAs) and, in particular, their impact on money laundering, tax evasion and avoidance. The opening analysis outlines the geopolitical and trade context, as well as the EU policy framework to combat money laundering, tax evasion and avoidance. It examines the effects of the ‘Panama Papers’ leaks; assesses the consequences of tax evasion and money laundering and their link to trade in Africa; evaluates the implementation of the EU-Central America Agreement; and provides a synthesis of the key findings and policy recommendations presented in the annexed study. The annexed expertise investigates the implementation and effects of financial services provisions in selected EU FTAs with third countries, with a particular focus on their propensity to curb money laundering, tax evasion and elusion. It concludes that the liberalisation of trade in good...

Giuristi e politologi studiano le interazioni tra decisori pubblici
e gruppi di pressione con riferimento sia ai temi tradizionali, e
generali, del diritto pubblico e amministrativo (in particolare la partecipazione dei portatori di interessi ai processi di formazione delle decisioni pubbliche) sia a problemi più specifici (la mobilità dei dipendenti delle pubbliche amministrazioni verso il settore privato, il controllo sull’esercizio di attività professionale di rappresentanza di interessi esercitato da organizzazioni no-profit e i finanziamenti privati all’attività politica, per citarne alcuni).
L’articolo esamina, con riferimento all’esercizio dell’attività lobbistica, il tema della trasparenza e quello delle revolving doors, ponendo a confronto le soluzioni adottate dai decisori pubblici nazionali e quello europeo (ad oggi l’unico, tra gli ordinamenti giuridici sovranazionali, ad aver adottato un sistema di regole espressamente dedicato alle interazioni con i gruppi di pressione). Al netto dei problemi di applicazione dei regimi di trasparenza nei singoli ordinamenti, sui quali l’articolo non si sofferma se non incidentalmente, si descrivono tre diverse ipotesi di monitoraggio
e controllo della operatività dei rappresentanti di interessi. Si discutono inoltre le questioni legate all’esercizio di attività di monitoraggio dell’attività lobbistica da parte di soggetti privati. L’analisi del tema delle revolving doors prende in esame le soluzioni applicate dai legislatori e il dibattito scientifico in merito alla opportunità dei vincoli al trasferimento di un funzionario pubblico al settore privato.

This paper challenges the mainstream social scientific approach that emphasizes “moral inferiority” in corruption and bribery in Central and Eastern Europe. We argue that in many cases, people participate in informal organizational resource exchanges not because of immorality or greed but rather because of powerful external forces. By using the case of contemporary Hungary to support this argument, this paper provides a systematic analysis of such imperatives. The findings of 50 in-depth qualitative interviews suggest that two main imperatives can be distinguished; macro-level social and mezzo-level organizational forces. Macro-level forces may be linked to historical paths, Hungary's socialist and pre-socialist social conditions, and its post-socialist welfare state development. Mezzo-level organizational forces are more general phenomena and can be found in many other countries in the world. Moreover, there are numerous categories within each theme. Some of them represent normative imperatives, while others are more material structural forces.

In this article, we advance research on transparency by developing and validating a measure based on recent theoretical insights about its dimensionality. We find that transparency—defined as the perceived quality of information—is a three-dimensional construct consisting of perceived information disclosure, clarity, and accuracy. Evidence shows items associated with these dimensions can be aggregated into a single transparency construct. We also find that transparency (as an aggregate construct) is distinct from neighboring constructs such as informational justice and capable of predicting perceptions of the source’s trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity). Finally, we find evidence of measurement invariance between two commonly used referents of analysis, yielding confidence in the application of the proposed measure across research settings. We discuss implications of the new measure for research on transparency, the extension of the new measure to related research ...

The study attempts (1) to analyze the legal and policy frameworks concerning public participation in PFM including the budgetary process, and (2) to identify specific civic space for public participation in PFM comprising the planning process, budgetary preparation, adoption, and the execution of budget at both national and sub-national levels.

Depuis la création d’un registre d’entreprises numérique en 1994, peu de réflexions ont été menées quant aux fins poursuivies par la publicité légale des entreprises au Québec. Dans cette province et ailleurs, les registres d’entreprises se trouvent pourtant au cœur de vifs débats entre organisations de la société civile, gouvernements et milieux d’affaires. L’auteure fait le point sur les finalités des registres d’entreprises en situant les controverses contemporaines dans une perspective historique. Si la numérisation de la publicité légale des entreprises a été initialement menée dans un esprit de libéralisation économique, elle a simultanément élargi le cercle des usagers potentiels de l’information publiée et doté la société civile d’un nouvel instrument de surveillance des entreprises. Bien qu’ils soient controversés, ces nouveaux usages s’avèrent conformes aux finalités historiques des registres d’entreprises: il ne convient pas de les entraver au nom de la protection de la vie privée.

O momento económico e financeiro apresenta uma crescente intranquilidade nas contas públicas. A análise tem-se, muitas vezes, centrado na questão do défice público. Contudo, os valores da dívida preocupam por ocuparem uma percentagem crescente e por, cada vez mais, as condições a que os Estados obtêm crédito dependerem dos movimentos especulativos. Aquilo que se propõe no presente artigo é analisar um dos aspectos que pode auxiliar a renovar a imagem das contas públicas, em especial, a imagem da dívida pública. A transparência da dívida pública é um mecanismo objecto de crescentes necessidade e atenção, pois, através dela, pode-se potenciar a qualificação do processo de gestão da dívida, permitindo igualmente a necessária responsabilização do poder público pelas más opções e pela má gestão na governação que impliquem colocar em causa a estabilidade presente e futura. Este estudo reparte-se por duas partes. Na parte I, agora publicada, analisa-se a temática genérica da transparência da dívida pública, quanto ao seu conceito, requisitos, objectivos, interessados, finalidades e a temática das limitações legais.

In the article, financial transparency is read as a potential manifestation of the Enlightenment, of its search for truth in every field of social living, and of its willingness of divulge it to civil society. The case studied is the publication of the public revenue and expenses made in the Kingdom of Naples in 1789 by the famous reformer Giuseppe Maria Galanti, by order of the King. The Neapolitan case shows that truth – the disclosure of data as such – is not self-transparent, and that a fundamental condition for transparency is the kind of relationship established between who divulges the data and the recipients of this disclosure. Transparency made in Naples was false because neither the King nor Galanti were truly addressing public opinion. The King, (clumsily) following the model of Necker’s Compte rendu, authorized the divulging of the data, but did not officially sanction it. As to Galanti, he saw the publication of financial data as an application of the new statistical approach to geography and of the collaboration between philosophes and enlightened rulers.

In his March 3, 2014 New Yorker cover cartoon “Ready for
His Closeup”, Barry Blitt depicts Oscar
, the statuette, as a
plastic surgery patient. Labels from head to toe highlight
the procedures that Oscar
has had ranging from his scalp
reduction to his pedestal augmentation. The only procedure
that Oscar
needed but did not have was a penile
reconstruction.

The demand for "more transparency" is omnipresent. We encounter the 'transparency imperative' not only in politics, but also in economics, science, journalism, or the healthcare system. How did transparency become a norm of such prominence? Does transparency keep its promises to create trust, efficiency, and participation? What kind of structures emerge from implementing transparency? And who benefits from them? Those are the questions analyzed in this international volume. Bringing the diversity of social science research on transparency together in one book, we show: Transparency is a modernist form of governance that translates distrust into practices of inspection. By standardizing and formalizing behavior, It makes social processes visible for lay people. Yet, transparency rarely achieves its proclaimed goals. Rather often, transparency even creates in-transparency. [FULL TEXT AVAILABLE ON SPRINGERLINK: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-22294-9]

This article is about this writer's attempts to get financial information, which is supposed to be public record, from Wright County Minnesota from 2008 to present.
This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 20, 2012. (see original print graphic at end of article! This writer"s entire column on Examiner.com was censored within Minnesota Supreme Court to remove a Minnesota District Court Judge from the bench for conspiring to perpetrate a Fraud upon the Court. This writer leaves it to reader to deduce for themselves who wanted these articles censored, and why the Government wants this writer silenced.

The paper analyses the concepts of transparency and accountability, their correlation with other key concepts used in Russian social and economic discourses, and also the critique of the transparency and accountability practices. It is shown that the main effect of development of these technologies is the substitution of reality by the “picture” formed for external users, transformation of this “picture” into the self-purpose. The reason of this is the change of
paradigms of trust. Society has passed from trust in authorities with their right to make decisions on the basis of professional judgment to trust in procedures and standards, trust in “picture”. We have changed trust in result to trust in
processes of its receiving. (В статье проанализированы практики прозрачности и подотчетности в экономике. Показано, что в результате широкого применения этих практик обнаруживаются серьезные различия между реальностью и (само)репрезентацией реальности («картинкой»), последняя становится самоцелью. Автор
приходит к выводу, что это вызвано сменой парадигм доверия, когда от доверия авторитетам общество перешло к доверию процедурам и стандартам.)

Licensed producers (LPs) of marijuana in Canada are embedded in a highly competitive industry where they raise funds from investors to finance their growth. They face substantial risks from the uncertain legal status of marijuana and from its unsettled health and safety consequences. We argue that this context stands to have implications for the disclosures of firms in the marijuana industry. We rely on a multicase study of three large Canadian LPs to explore their mandatory and voluntary disclosures during the third quarter of 2018. We find that their mandatory interim disclosures are largely consistent with disclosure rules that target marijuana operations. We also find that they make voluntary disclosures relevant for their context (e.g., about risks from legal, health, and safety consequences), and that there is variation in these disclosures. We use our findings as a springboard for discussing the antecedents of mandatory and voluntary disclosures in the marijuana industry (i.e., proprietary costs, investor interest, detection costs of selective disclosures), and their consequence (i.e., lack of comparability). We offer suggestions for future research.

In a context of skewed financial resources and complex urban challenges exacerbated by pandemic impacts, cities are searching for more effective and more innovative ways to finance and development. Better Cities, Better World: A Handbook on Local Governments Self-Assessments is at the heart of these moves. It outlines a grid for analysis, a framework for data-based policy dialogue, a common language which for city professionals. The Municipal Finances Self-Assessment leads readers and explains methodology with concrete numbers from a large city through the jungle of financial analysis to assess financial health of municipalities. This book provides a bottom-line pragmatic framework for diagnosis and self-assessment with strong links to action and policy reform. It connects the dots between investments programming (Urban Audit) and financing (Municipal Finances Self-Assessment), two key local functions which are too often carried out on parallel tracks.

Charities are subject to stringent transparency and accountability requirements from government and funders to ensure that they are conducting work and spending money appropriately. Charities are increasingly important to civic life and have unique characteristics as organisations. This provides a rich space in which HCI researchers may learn from and affect both held notions of transparency and accountability, and the relationships between these organisations and their stakeholders. We conducted ethnographic fieldwork and workshops over a seven month period at a charity. We aimed to understand how the transparency obligations of a charity manifest through work and how the workers of a charity reason about transparency and accountability as an everyday practice. Our findings highlight how organisations engage in presenting different accounts of their work; how workers view their legal transparency obligations in contrast with their accountability to their everyday community; and how their labour does not translate well to outcome measures or metrics. We discuss implications for the design of future systems that support organisations to produce accounts of their work as part of everyday practice.

Esta ponencia aborda el problema de la mercantilización de la política en Colombia y analiza el impacto que ha tenido en este país el actual sistema de financiamiento de los partidos políticos. Responde a la pregunta acerca de si este sistema grarantiza la transparencia e inclusión en el sistema electoral colombiano.

In this article, I share my views of the very important event in Uzbekistan’s economic and governance development. On 20 December 2018, Fitch assigned Uzbekistan rating BB-. This is the first time when this country, known for its isolation from the global financial markets, has received credit rating from a reputable agency. I consider this event from two points of view: first, as a step toward openness and meeting the transparency standards and respective access to international bond markets; and secondly, analysing the reasons of why Uzbekistan has received a so low grade, despite boasting forex reserves and low debts. I am pointing out to the weakness of its institutions as one of the main reasons why Uzbekistan does worse compared to a number of other post-Soviet states.

This is an analysis of the situation around the construction of the International Business Center Tashkent City. What I have found after studying the available sources:

1) The decision to evict residents from the area of future construction began in 2015, long before the government took a formal decision on this construction and approved its project.

2) Information about the project itself, its lots, investors and participants, is extremely scarce, especially for the financial part. The announced website of the project does not function. The main source of information about this project worth of 1.3 billion is its Facebook page, but even there a very little useful information is available.

3) With the appointment of the former director of the project as the hokim of the city of Tashkent, the level of transparency around the construction project has fellen sharply. The website of the city government is not functioning, where there was at least some information, for example, the hokimiyat's decision to evict people from the area of future construction.

4) The information of the project management about investors of the project is extremely doubtful. In two cases, the reported investors do not have neither their own website nor "credit" history. In one case, the "investor"’s charter capital is only 25 thousand euros, in another - it is generally a start-up company, with a statutory contribution of one of the founders in the amount of £99. This kind of "investment" often indicates that there are other actors behind “investor” with possible money laundering. This practice was widely practiced in Russia, when local tycoons created offshore firms and entered in this role in the domestic market.

So far, the directorate of the project Tashkent City could not provide reliable and credible information about what serious investors are willing to finance the project and on what terms. There is a strong suspicion that the financial part is all or partially in shadow, which is fraught with large losses for Uzbekistan, both financial and reputational. There are also concerns about the technical safety of the objects being erected. Where shadow schemes operate, there is always a temptation for sponsors to save on the necessary costs that guarantee the security of objects.

5) Finally, with the exception of one case (selection of a master plan), the selection of investors and project participants was apparently conducted without an open and transparent tender. As a rule, in such cases, the result is significant financial losses and risks of shadow kickbacks.

The revealed shadow nature of a significant part of the ongoing project will have serious reputational consequences for Uzbekistan. I do not think this will help attract serious investors to the country.

I think that in this situation, only an international complex audit of the project and full disclosure to the public of all information on lots can save the country's reputation.

En este trabajo se analiza la reciente jurisprudencia, tanto del Tribunal Supremo como del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea, en relación
con los préstamos concedidos en moneda extranjera y en multidivisa.
Partiendo de una delimitación conceptual y de la naturaleza de este tipo de contratos, se analizan la STJUE de 20 de septiembre de 2017 y la reciente STS (Pleno) núm. 608/2017, de 15 de noviembre, que declara la nulidad parcial de un préstamo hipotecario concedido en multidivisa, a raíz de la aplicación del control de transparencia a las cláusulas de referencia a divisa extranjera, que se entiende no superado en el caso objeto del recurso.