11 April 2019 – Dubai, UAE During the last five years, Banknote Ethics Initiative (BnEI) accreditation has become the de facto standard for the prevention of corruption and compliance with anti-trust law within the banknote industry. It is now relied on by governments, central banks, and security printers to ensure their suppliers are compliant with the highest ethical standards.
The focus of BnEI’s efforts includes the creation of Integrity Pacts which are agreements between bidders, the end customer, and a monitor. Its aim is to ensure a clean, transparent and fair tender process. Integrity Pacts are flexible and adapted to each context. They often contain anti-corruption and fair obligations, and tools to report and resolve issues as well as sanctions. Integrity Pacts have been used in 20 countries in a range of sectors.
“The benefit of such a pact is that parties wanting to tender can only participate if they sign the pact so while this would have to be initiated by the Central Bank NPA would certainly be willing to support such a move,” says Scott Healy, Commercial Manager and NPA’s representative to BnEI.
Scott Healy, seen here with Mirna Adjami from the Basel Institute on Governance, says Integrity Pacts are not new in procurement and should have a place in banknote tenders.