The speech delivered by Chairman of State Administration Council of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing at the ceremony to mark International Anti-Corruption Day 2021

I’d like to extend greetings to Union level officials, region and state chief ministers and specially-invited guests to the ceremony to mark the International Anti-Corruption Day which falls on 9 December, and I pray may all be auspicious.
The United Nations General Assembly designated the day of 9th December as the International Anti-Corruption Day under Resolution 58/4 on 31 October 2003. The ceremonies in commemoration of the International Anti-Corruption Day are marked across the world with the aim of widening the knowledge about fighting corruption and further understanding the primary role of the UN international convention in anti-corruption and preventive measures.
As such, Myanmar holds the ceremony to mark the International Anti-Corruption Day on a grand scale starting from 2017 similar to that of convention member countries in the global community. This year’s ceremony is held in a virtual format but the ceremony of attendees is due to COVID-19. Goal-16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations mentions is dedicated to the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, the provision of access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels. Government departments/organizations accept the concept of implementation of anti-corruption measures as a national duty. If so, I’d like to express my belief that a clean government and good governance would develop to build a progressive and pleasant State.
Anti-corruption is of great importance in shaping the good governance system as well as abiding by the codes of ethics and multilateral trusts among the public service personnel and the organizations. In fact, the public service personnel are a bridge between the State and the people. The service personnel need to be free from corruption and to follow the rules and regulations and ethics to seek the trust of the State.
To do so, the Union Civil Service Board has released the norms for the ethics of the public service personnel. These norms aim primarily to abide by the norms of basic ethics such as transparency, responsibility and accountability, free from bias, free from corruption, and fairness in the functioning of the personnel.
Definition and prohibition over usage of words on bribery and corruption have been existing in the Myanmar cultural arena for many years in accord with the teachings of the Lord Buddha. Most people know four kinds of corruption as follows:-
Candagati-committing the inappropriate acts based on the bias for love,
Dosagati- committing the inappropriate acts based on the bias for hatred,
Bhayagati- committing the inappropriate acts based on the bias for fear,
Mohagati- committing inappropriate acts based on the bias for wavering. So, the definition of corruption in Myanmar cultural arena is larger and deeper than that of the world.
Corruption happens in various forms such as acts of monetary corruption, acts of corruption related to State-owned property, acts of corruption related to human resources and acts of corruption related to authority in the political, economic and administrative arenas. The service personnel on the duty of the State in all sectors need to avoid the acts leading to corruption and focus on the public interests only.
Actually, corruption is an act of abusing the authority entrusted by the people for serving their interests. The root causes of many cases of corruption are the extreme entrusting of individual authority and power, adoption of complicated rules and regulations for the authority, lack of techniques effectively monitoring the acts of rationality, and lack of responsibilities for their decisions.
The government needs to keenly adopt the policies for anti-corruption so as to solve the problems of corruption whereas the framework of the law is of great importance. So, our government has already enacted the anti-corruption rules and is implementing the national anti-corruption strategies to raise the knowledge awareness of anti-corruption, preventive measures against corruption and taking action against the violators.
As corruption can harm the development of the State as well as peace and stability in all aspects, cases of corruption were exposed in the country to take action against the violators under the law. Moreover, the corruption-prevention units are systematically formed in the government departments/organizations to minimize the corruption cases rather than now.
In order to emerge a righteous and honest culture in the society, only when the people in individuals participate in the anti-corruption measures will their workplaces and environs be shaped as a society with honesty free from corruption.
I’d like to point out that public participation plays a crucial role in the anti-corruption strategies in scrutinizing the corruption problems and implementing the reform process. It is important that any programmes to reduce corruption must admit all the persons who had faced losses in corruption. It is necessary to mention the directives, rules and regulations understandable for the people.
In conclusion, the cases of corruption must be investigated to take action against the violators so as to emerge a corruption-free society in Myanmar with minimizing the existing cases of corruption. As a gesture of hailing the International Anti-Corruption Day, I’d like to deeply urge officials from the government departments/organizations and the entire people to participate in the anti-corruption measures in harmony.
Thank you.