Organizations Anti-Corruption Certification Program

Starting September 1, 2016, The AACI offers globally a disciplined anti-corruption certification program to organizations seeking to prevent fraud and corruption inside their business processes, operations, and culture. This certification process is the first of its kind worldwide and forms a basis for institutional change in fighting fraud and corruption. It is available to organizations of all kinds and types. The process is principally administered and completed Online.

It is an annual certification process that shows quantitatively the collective anti-corruption knowledge score of those who are charged with governance and reports on the result.

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A Greek tragedy and an EU crime

Cayman Financial Review
By: L. Burke Files & Mike J. MASOUD 
April 22, 2015

Let’s start with being provocative: The utterly corrupt path leading to the Greek debt default theater is filled with faux EU pressures, chicanery and bribes, overt and implied, by all 11 sides. 

So what are the corrupt paving stones that make up the path to debt perdition?

1981 

It all started with Greece’s membership in the European Community. The EU membership entitled Greece to European Regional Integration funds, the Delors Package I. It also brought new sources to borrow from abroad. In 1981 Greek public debt was €8.5 billion (22.8 percent of Greece’s GDP), by 1991 it was €48 billion (71 percent of GDP). This is a full 10 years before Greece was made a full member of the EU. Did Greece have the institutional capacity to absorb these funds without corruption? Did anyone think to ask?

January 2001 

Greece became the 12th member of the eurozone. While many fretted about such an economically weak country joining the euro, Wim Duisenberg, then president of the European Central Bank, assured all that Greece, with the EU’s help, would continue with improvements to its economy that would make euro membership appropriate. 

At the time, Greece touted its fiscal reforms to cut the government budget deficit, privatizations and labor market reforms. Today those are the same areas where the troika has demanded action and the Greek government resisted. 

2004 

Greece admits it may have fudged its bona fides a bit to gain access to the EU club. It seems that since 1999 Greece has not met the deficit target of 3 percent of GDP that applies to all prospective and current members. 

As commentators have pointed out, this was in part a consequence of a toothless Eurostat, the EU agency that monitors economic statistics, which was wholly reliant on the data provided by the national governments. 

As Matina Stevis pointed out in The Guardian in 2011, “In a time when the EU issues regulations on the permissible size and shape of fruit, there are no excuses for not having in place a strict framework for the generation of statistical information.”

2004 to 2009 

Greece is a big spender. Athens hosted the Olympics at extravagant expense. The estimated cost of the Olympic Games is a stunning $14 - 15 billion. No game in the history of the Olympics has lost more than a tenth of that. Associated Press reported in 2012 that eight years after the Olympic Games many of the facilities were left vacant and rotting. 

Many Greeks, even the head of the International Olympic Committee, say hosting the 2004 Olympics contributed to the country’s debt crisis. The Olympic Games was such a bank buster that it was the tipping point starting Greece’s downward slide into debt perdition. 

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The President of The American Anti-Corruption Institute (AACI) lecturing at Texas A&M law school, Fort Worth, Texas in January 2015

The President of The American Anti-Corruption Institute (AACI) lecturing at Texas A&M law school, Fort Worth, Texas in January 2015

The AACI in Richmond, Virginia: “Ethics, Leadership and Respect”

L. Bukre Files

 The AACI in Richmond, Virginia: “Ethics, Leadership and Respect”

April 2014. Invited by The leadership of Henrico County Leadership Conference, in Richmond Virginia, Mr. L. Burke Files, President of The American Anti-Corruption Institute (AACI) participated in this conference earlier this month.

As Mr. Files stated " I spoke at the Henrico County Leadership Conference, in Richmond Virginia. The theme for this year presentation was “Ethics, Leadership and Respect”. This group had the finest batches of questions on corruption and its impact I have had to date. There was no fear of how they looked in front of others, except a bit of a challenge to ask even better questions. What is all the more surprising is that there where student from 7th grade through high school! What an awesome bunch. I cannot thank Edie Curry or Carole Haarve enough as my co-speakers and two true leaders."

The AACI is committed to support all the academic initiatives that help students and faculty play an active role in corruption prevention.

The Code of Ethics of the American Anti-Corruption Institute (AACI)

Members of the AACI must abide by its Code of Ethics. This code is by itself a deterrence fraud measure that has its unseen effect(s). You will find the AACI Code of Ethics when you visit the AACI’s website at http://www.theaaci.com/assets/the_aaci_code_of_ethics_.pdf