A Corruption Prevention and Investigation Group at the Ministry of National Defence will begin the work on August 16 to ensure an even more effective implementation of corruption prevention measures in the National Defence System.
“It is pivotal to build up a corruption-resilient environment at the National Defence System that is a combination of different specific institutions and employs over 11 thousand career military personnel and 3 thousand civilian personnel. It is worthwhile to resource proportionately in order to achieve the transparency goals set,” says Minister of National Defence Arvydas Anušauskas.
The primary directions of the Group are set out to arrange involvement of institutions of the National Defence System and their units into anti-corruption resilience activities and to increase corruption awareness in all National Defence System civilian and military personnel. Other activities also include identification of corruption probability level at the most risk-prone areas and arrangement of risk mitigation.
“People’s behavior depends on their honesty and motivation. We have always aimed at strengthening it as national defence is property generated with the money of taxpayer money of the national budget,” Minister says.
The Corruption Prevention and Investigation Group will be also responsible for investigation of infringements of law of a corruptive nature. The Group will be directly subordinate and accountable to the Minister of National Defence.
The new Law on Corruption Prevention came into force as on January 1, 2022, which allows a systemic anti-corruption measures and avoids fragmented governance.
Aside from other changes, it allows for the public sector entities to ensure corruption their and their subordinate entity prevention, defines the rights , responsibilities and activity guarantees for those responsible for corruption resilience, develops corruption prevention measures (e.g., introduces a measure to identify the level of corruption resilience).
