In what could be a big step toward uprooting corruption, the community will now be empowered to question and voice their concerns in a form of Community Score Cards or CSC. The Anti-Corruption Commission in collaboration with the Royal Civil Service Commission and Bhutan Transparency Initiative released an e-learning course for civil servants as well as a training manual on the CSC. The country observed the International Anti-corruption Day today.
The online course is expected to improve ethical culture in the public sector. There are several modules in the course, including an introduction to ethics, integrity, and professionalism as well as an anti-corruption curriculum.
According to Tshering Zangmo, the Assistant Integrity Promotion Officer with the ACC, the e-learning course is aimed towards promoting values like ethics and integrity. “At the same time, it is aimed towards sensitizing and creating awareness of what the public service providers should be doing and what they should not be doing before they succumb to any risk such as corruption,” she added.
Similarly, the training Manual for CSC was developed in the hope to improve responsibility, accountability, and ownership of developmental programmes and activities at the local level. The community scorecard is a social accountability instrument that encourages citizens to actively participate in government to promote transparency, strengthen accountability, and eliminate wrongdoings and corruption.
“The manual on community scorecard was developed based on our experience in implementing the community scorecard over the last six years. It takes to account the legal, political and social context of our country. The manual covers the steps in implementing and institutionalizing the practices of community scorecards in the communities. We hope that this manual will go a long way in adding values to the democratic decentralization processes initiated by our visionary monarchs,” said Kinley Drukpa, the Programme Officer at the Bhutan Transparency Initiative.
The International Anti-Corruption Day is observed across the world on 9th December every year as designated by the UN General Assembly in October 2003. Bhutan joined the international community in observing the International Anti-Corruption Day in 2004 to raise public awareness on corruption and what people can do to fight it.
Pema Seldon Tshering
Edited by Sonam
