Southeast Asian Parliamentarians Against Corruption (SEAPAC) President, H.E. DR. Marzuki Alie and Chair of Indonesian Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) National Chapter, Hon. DR. Pramono Anung Wibowo invited parliaments in Southeast Asia, especially ones with established GOPAC National Chapter in their parliament to attend SEAPAC Board Meeting. This meeting will discuss strengthening anti-corruption on parliament’s efforts. On this occasion, back to back SEAPAC will also hold Workshop “Stronger Ethics and Integrity: Path for Parliament to Combat Corruption” on August 28-29, 2014 in Jakarta.

Codes of ethics may help to establish good ethics and strong integrity, be it in the parliament or in the government. Those codes of conduct strive to decrease corruption and increase accountability among public officials. Article 8 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) has underlined the need to have codes of conduct for public officials, thus SEAPAC committed to create the codes of conduct offers clear ethical standards and a reference point which citizens and governments can use to assess the behavior of public officials.

Currently, will speak at the SEAPAC Board Meeting and Workshop are: Member of the GOPAC Executive Board, Hon. Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu; Member of GOPAC Parliamentary Ethics and Conduct Global Task Force (GTF-PEC), Hon. Brig. Gen. SK. Abu Bakr; Member of SEAPAC, Timor Leste, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam; and various anti-corruption organization such as United Nation on Drugs & Crime (UNODC), Transparency International and National Democratic Institute (TI-NDI) and Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK-RI). SEAPAC still is awaiting confirmation of other parliaments such as Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Philippine.

This workshop will be useful to assess and mapping effort from SEAPAC members in setting a bar of conduct in performing their duties and also to provide an opportunity to share how the ethics and integrity of the parliamentarians should be developed within the respective parliaments of SEAPAC to combat corruption in Southeast Asia region.

SEAPAC President looks forward to receiving positive confirmation from all SEAPAC Members to send some representatives to this Board Meeting and Workshop as an effort to strengthen the parliament scrutiny role, legislation, promoting transparency, good governance and a corrupt free in the Southeast Asia.