The High Authority trains agents of the INLUCC

On 12 and 13 February 2019, three agents of the High Authority went on a training mission in Tunisia, upon request of the National office against corruption (INLUCC) and with the support of the French Embassy in Tunisia. This mission followed former exchanges between the institutions and the adoption in July 2018 of a new law on asset declaration, fight against illicit enrichment and conflicts of interest, increasing the missions of the Tunisian agency.

Indeed, with the evolution of the Tunisian legal and regulatory framework, the INLUCC wanted its agents tasked with the collection and control of declarations to benefit from the experience of the High Authority, when currently faced with challenges in the field of management of declarations and publication in a context and delays that are heavily constrained.

Divided in four blocks, the interventions and exchanges allowed to cover (i) the missions of collection of declarations, identification and relations with public officials subject to declarative obligations, (ii) the procedures and instruments of control of the content of declarations, (iii) the procedures and counsel missions to public officials implemented in France to prevent situations of conflicts of interests, and last (iv) information available to the public on the website of the High Authority.

The agents of the INLUCC notably requested from the representatives of the High Authority details on issues related to publication of declarations, sanctions applicable in case of non-submission of a declaration, to the chronology, rhythm and agents tasked with the control missions, or to the reasoning defined by the High Authority to assess potential conflict of interests situations.

Therefore, the exchanges with the INLUCC confirmed the high interest of this institution in the experience of the High Authority on the one hand, and their commitment to implement the mission that was entrusted to the institution by the Tunisian legislator in 2018, despite 300 000 public officials subject to declarative obligation, technical obstacles and the reception of close to 130 000 declarations since summer 2018.

Moreover, on 4 and 5 March, in the framework of the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument of the European Commission (TAIEX) and upon request of the INLUCC, a conference on asset disclosure and prevention of conflicts of interests was organized in Tunis. This was an additional occasion for the services of this agency and the representatives of civil society organizations to exchange on Romanian, French and Italian experiences, respectively represented by agents of the National Integrity Agency of Romania, the High Authority for transparency in public life and the National anticorruption authority of Italy, and to confront the new Tunisian framework with them.

New exchanges between the High Authority and the INLUCC will be planned to deepen the understanding of some topics and allow further exchange of experience between these two institutions.