The Review Meeting of the ROC’s second report under the United Nations Convention against Corruption drew to a successful close today on Sep 2. In this two-day meeting, five members of an international review committee engaged in wide-ranging and in-depth discussions on significant anti-corruption topics—including corruption prevention, criminalization and law enforcement,international cooperation, and recovery of illegal assets—and presented 104 concluding observations on important issues regarding the anti-corruption measures implemented by the Taiwanese government. These concluding observations, which were presented in a press conference held on the same day in the grand auditorium of the Ministry of Justice, were divided into 51 main findings and observations, 17 best practices, and 36 challenges to implementation and recommendations.
The press conference was hosted by Lo Ping-cheng, Minister without Portfolio and Spokesperson of Executive Yuan, who received the review committee’s documents on behalf of the Taiwanese government. José Ugaz, the chairman of the committee praised the government for its anti-corruption efforts so far, saying that after the review of its first national report, the government made great accomplishments in preventing and fighting corruption.
In the future, Taiwan will work more earnestly with the private sector, and the non-governmental organizations. It will also, as usual, urge all its ministries and agencies to implement the concluding observations and to take them into account when establishing policies, laws and regulations, and other activities regarding anti-corruption. The outcomes of these efforts will undergo a midterm review two years from now and an international review four years from now.