Workshop: Fraud Awareness and Prevention Workshop for USAID/ OTI Sub Grantees

Workshop: Fraud Awareness and Prevention Workshop for USAID/ OTI Sub Grantees

Date: July 14, 2016

Venue: AwariTowers, Karachi

Guest Speakers:Mr. Nate Marceca, Special Agent , USAID OIG; Sean Macleay, Deputy CountryRepresentative, USAID Office of Transition Initiative (OTI); Lt. Col (R) SirajulNaeem, Director General, NAB, Karachi; Kayla Y. Ma, Investigative Analyst, USAID OIG; Mr. AdilGillani, Advisor, TI-Pakistan; Mr. Mohammad Ali Taj, Project Manager, TI-Pakistan; Mr. Faisal Iqbal, Compliance Officer, Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI)

Summary:

Transparency International Pakistan with the collaboration of USAID/ OIG conducted a workshop on Fraud Awareness and Prevention workshop for USAID/ OTI sub grantees on July 14, 2016 at AvariTowers, Karachi.

The objective of the workshop was to spread awareness regarding fraud and corruption among the sub grantees ofOTI implementing partners of USAIDfunded projects. The workshop provided the opportunity to the participants to engage with the peers and representatives from USAID, OIG, OTI, DAI,NAB, and TI- Pakistan to discuss challenges regarding corruption and fraudulent practices in the implementation of their project. They also learnt about preventive measures in different scenarios. Around 56 participants attended the workshop from approx. 26 organizations.

The registration started at 8:30am. The program officially started at 9:20am with the recitation of a verse from the Holy Qur’an by Mohammad Ali Taj, Project Manager, TI- Pakistan. The program was opened by a welcome note given by Mr. Nate Marceca, Special Agent, USAID OIG. Mr. Nate thanked everyone and welcomed all representatives from USAID, OIG, OTI, TI-Pakistan and participating organizations.

Moving on, Mr. SeanMacleay, Deputy CountryRepresentative, USAID OTI, in his opening remarks introduced himself and briefed how OTI works with DAI in combination with OIG/USAID.Mr. Sean also said how the issues, available resources and procedures and practices are applied by OTI with the help of DAI. Mr. Sean also introduced John Sampson, Principal Strategic Advisor, DAI.

John Sampson, Principal Strategic Advisor, DAIgave information on how DAI and OTI are supported by USAID, and also outlined the roles and responsibilities of people working under DAI.

Mr. AdilGillani, Advisor, TI-Pakistan, gave his presentation on the objectives, setup and operation of Anti-Fraud Hotline project. He also briefed on how the project is advertised and the complaint handling mechanism. In his presentation Mr. AdilGillani informed the participants that Anti-Fraud Hotline had received approx. 73,000 calls of which approx. 7,300 were registered as complaints.

Mr. Faisal Iqbal, Compliance Officer, DAI introduced himself and his role as a compliance officer. In his presentation he identified that DAI with the help of OTI, is working with the local partners for implementation of the project. He also briefed the audience on topics such as Importance of ethics, raising ethical issues and concerns, DAI’s code of business conduct and ethics, DAI’S compliance program.

Mr. Nate Marceca, Special Agent, USAID OIG, gave his presentation on fraud awareness and prevention. He started by explaining the role of OIG and its responsibilities. He explained the types of investigations OIG carries out that are criminal, civil and administrative. He also mentioned how USAID OIG has been collaborating with national entities such as NAB, PPRA and TI-Pakistan in order to ensure that USAID funds are properly utilized and to minimize the corruption and wastage. Mr. Nate Marceca shared OIG’s results of their investigations. He also gave a detailed presentation on employee’s misconduct, how OIG receives complaints, difference between anonymous and confidential complaints, procurement fraud, beneficiary schemes, product substitution, detecting fraud in procurement, notification procedures and details to be included in implementer report.

Lt. Col (R) SirajulNaeem, Director General, NAB, Karachiin his speech talked about how NAB is playing a vital role in fighting the menace of corruption from the country. He also briefed the audience on NAB’s operation and the outcome of their investigations. A theme song prepared by NAB against corruption was also played at the workshop.

Mr. Mohammad Ali Taj, Project Manager, TI-Pakistan, carried out an interactive session, by sharing some common scenarios that Anti-Fraud Hotline comes across in the implementation of the projects. He explained the preventive measures that the implementing partners in such scenarios. He further described the red flags that the implementing partners should look out for in order to identify corruption. He encouraged the audience to report any incident of corruption to Anti-Fraud Hotline.

Kayla Y. Ma, Investigative Analyst, USAID OIG guided the breakout group discussion section which was also a part of the day’s agenda. The audience was given a few topics at the beginning of the day. The participants were divided into four groups which were led by representatives of OIG, TI-Pakistan and USAID and the topics were discussed and concerns and questions of the people were answered. The topics included Procurement Fraud, Product Substitution, Internal Controls, and Whistle Blower protection. The session was highly informative and interactive as it provided the audience an opportunity to ask questions related to that topic and learn from the response given by the group leaders.

In the end a panel of five representatives from OIG, TI-Pakistan and USAID answered questions from the participants. Finally Kayla Y. Ma gave her closing remarks and thanked everyone for their enthusiastic participation, and expressed her hope that the people learned from the workshop and that it will enable them in developing anti-corruption strategies in their given projects.