site.btaIntegrity Checks to Be Extended to all Inspecting Institutions, MP Proposes

April 2 (BTA) - Integrity checks should be extended to
all institutions and government entities which perform
inspecting and control functions. The proposal came from Boris
Yachev MP, Chairman of the parliamentary Committee on
Anti-Corruption, Conflict of Interests and Parliamentary Ethics,
 who spoke at a conference on "Ethics in Public Administration:
Standards, Instruments and Good Practices," organized here on
Tuesday by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Bulgarian
Institute for Legal Initiatives.

Yachev said that part of the MPs are inclined to initiate
legislation regulating the notions of "ethics in public
administration" and "standards of behaviour for civil servants".

Commission for Counter-Corruption and Unlawfully Acquired Assets
 Forfeiture Chairman Plamen Georgiev said at the opening of the
conference that his Commission is drafting ethical rules of
conduct for the administration. He added that there are no
written rules in Bulgaria on accepting and declaring gifts to
specify what is permissible and what is not. He cited, as an
example, an explanation that "a gift that you can eat within 45
minutes is permissible".

Thorsten Geissler, Head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Field
Office Bulgaria, stressed the importance of adopting a code of
ethics for the state administration to help in the prevention of
 corruption. The code should direct civil servants to patterns
of behaviour and actions. RY/LG