Civic movement forms in Abkhazia against corruption

A civic movement against corruption is taking form in Abkhazia.

A group of political and civil activists have appealed to parliament to quickly pass a bill titled ‘On State Service’ and to ratify the 20th article of the UN convention ‘On Combating Corruption’.

The group says that the UN convention would be beneficial to Abkhazia because its essence is simple and does not allow for ambiguous interpretations.

1. ‘Illegal enrichment’ must be recognised as a criminal offense.
2. Any official whose assets significantly (the threshold of discrepancy depends on the country’s standard of living) exceed those of his legal sources of income must be indicted with corruption and must be suspended from work during the course of the investigation.
3. Such an official must prove his innocence in court personally.

This article has been approved by 172 countries across the world, the group says.

“We discussed the proposal with both the current parliament and the former one. As a whole, we found understanding and sympathy among the MPs. We are pursuing completely clear, legal and fair aims and we are not dependent on any political party,” the appeal reads.

The group has also offered up its variant of a bill titled “On The Competitive Selection of Individuals For The Civil Service” for inspection, in which regulations for open competitions for vacant government positions are clearly dictated.

Social media has reacted with skepticism to the initiative.

“Haha, how funny [you are]! You think they’ll deprive themselves of their own income [feed]?”

“Who will check what and how? It’s probably possible to check the accounts of officials in Russian banks. But what about in foreign banks?”

“When Luzhkov reigned in Moscow, his wife was the largest businesswoman in Russia. Our embezzlers have children, wives, aunts and nephews as well.”

“One can very easily see when officials and MPs have gotten themselves into a ‘sweet spot’ judging by the make and model of the cars they drive around in.”