Fighting Corruption with Transparency International

Bosnia and Herzegovina is ranked among the most underdeveloped and corrupt countries in the world where reforms are slowly implemented (the same level with Zambia, Jamaica, Senegal and Dominican Republic). Citizens’ participation is a crucial component to a culture of tackling corruption, since integrity, accountability and transparency must take hold societal and systemically if it is to uproot corruption practices.

Together with Transparency International’s Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre (ALAC) we provide a centre consisting of a hot line for corruption, legal advices and advocacy.  The centres demonstrate that people do become actively involved in the fight against corruption when they are provided with simple and credible citizen participation mechanisms to do so. The ALAC provide victims and/or witnesses of corruption with practical assistance to pursue complaints and address their grievances.

The Centre was set up in 2004 and has since received over 10.000 complaints through the free of charge phone line. The main achievements so far are dismissals of several corrupt officials, some 500 internal controls launched, 15 criminal charges pressed, reviews of internal acts, bylaws etc.