The High Authority receives guests from Egypt and Libya

During the month of February 2019, the High Authority received guests from Egypt and Libya. These foreign visitors wanted to discover the French system for preventing breaches of public probity. In this context, they were particularly interested in the missions of the High Authority and its mechanisms to monitor the integrity of public officials falling within the scope of the laws of 11 October 2013 on transparency in public life.

On 11 February 2019, a delegation of senior officials from the anti-corruption unit of the Egyptian Administrative Control Authority was welcomed by Ms. Lisa Gamgani, secretary general of the High Authority, Mr. Salim Cissé, deputy head of the compliance and data management division, Mr. Sébastien Margotte, head of the control and data monitoring division, and Ms. Izadora Zubek, international partnerships officer. This visit was organized on the occasion of a study trip devoted to the fight against corruption and money laundering.

Firstly, Ms. Gamgani presented the context of the creation of the High Authority, its missions, its structure and the results of its first five years of operation. Then, Mr. Cissé explained in detail the process of receiving declarations of assets and interests of public officials, and recounted the development of ADEL, the High Authority’s online declaration service.

Moreover, the Egyptian delegation discussed with Mr. Margotte about specific issues related to the verification of the content of declarations and the detection of possible infringements. Thus, the High Authority’s means of control, such as its access to information from the tax administration, were described. Besides, Ms. Zubek mentioned the various international cooperation initiatives carried out by the High Authority.

On 15 February 2019, Ms. Émilie Cazenave, international partnerships coordinator, and Ms. Izadora Zubek met with Mr. Mohamed Aburgeiga, a Libyan lawyer and consultant committed in the fight against corruption.

Mr. Aburgeiga, who was invited to France by the International Visitor Leadership Program (PIPA) of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, expressed his interest in the High Authority’s role in the prevention of conflicts of interest and the promotion of transparency in the public sector. He noted that the concept of conflict of interest was not defined in Libyan law and that he wanted to know about the French system in this area in order to identify good practices that could be adopted by his country.

In this perspective, the tools for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest designed by the High Authority were presented. Furthermore, the publication of declaration of public officials as open data and the implementation of the register of interest representatives were the subject of lively exchanges, which highlighted the contribution of these instruments in strengthening public trust. Questions were also asked about the processing and protection of declarants’ personal data, as well as the coordination between the High Authority and other institutions responsible for ensuring the probity and ethics of public officials.