CVC-led system to check corruption goes online

NEW DELHI, Dec 30: An information sharing system developed by the Central Vigilance Commission to ensure global cooperation in checking black money and initiating anti-corruption measures has gone online.
The Information Sharing and Analysis Against Corruption (ISAAC), a knowledge management system, will facilitate exchange of information about anti-corruption organisations, systems, procedures, practices and experiences among member organisations and other stakeholders across the world.
It will also help in dealing effectively with transnational crimes and check illegal proceedings or black money, officials said.
The purpose of ISAAC is to enable international cooperation in enforcement of anti-corruption measures and prevention of corruption and development of new approaches to tackle graft.
It will also help in capacity building of anti-corruption authorities and members can share best practices being followed by them to check corruption, they said.
About 219 anti-corruption authorities across the world are part of this global online mechanism, which can be accessed at www.Isaac.Nic.In. The portal is being maintained by the CVC.
Country’s premier investigation agency CBI and the probity watchdog CVC have no best practice to share on this global platform. The ISAAC was inaugurated late last month.
The CBI has put a six-year old bribery case on the website. The case, involving acceptance of Rs 7,000 bribe by a Central public Works Department (CPWD) engineer from a contractor, resulted in sentencing on February 5, this year.
The court convicted the engineer and sentenced him to undergo three years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs one lakh, according to the information put on ISAAC website.
Central Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar was last year chosen to head a 10-member global task force to develop the system.
The members of the task force included Luiz A F Navarro, Deputy Controller General, Brazil, Y E Feng, Secretary General, IAACA, Eduardo Vetere, Vice-President, IAACA, Italy, Dimitri Vlassis, Chief Corruption and Economic Crime, UNODC, Vienna and Francesca Recanatini, Senior Public Sector Specialist, World Bank.
The decision to assign the role of heading the task force to the probity watchdog was taken by International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA), an independent, non-political anti-corruption organisation of more than 200 members including India.
The user-friendly website will have data on anti-corruption practices being followed by other countries.
The CVC is providing all support to the website. “This system will help all to check corruption globally,” a CVC official said. (PTI)