In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Honorable audience,
It gives me pleasure to welcome you all in Doha to the sixth Global Forum for Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity.
There is no doubt that the high level of participation in such a Forum reflects the global concern for the topics raised for discussion at the Forum and the importance of the role the previous global forums have played at the national and international levels in fighting corruption.
These forums have achieved a lot since the first global forum was held in Washington in 1999 despite several challenges. These forums embody the importance of international co-operation to combat such a dangerous phenomenon whose scope has extended worldwide, as it affects the rich, poor, developed and underdeveloped nations.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The topics you will discuss and which are scheduled on the forum’s agenda deal with several issues related to fighting corruption, including separation of powers, independence of judiciary, enhancing culture of integrity and safeguarding it, partnership between the public and private sectors in building institutions for fighting corruption.
Undoubtedly, such an agenda reveals the various aspects of the problem and its complexity, since corruption has several dimensions - namely social, economic, moral, educational, cultural, religious and political. Thus, fighting corruption is not confined to one aspect, but it is an integrated mechanism which should cover all those elements and find appropriate solutions to all of them. Otherwise, our efforts will remain inadequate to deal effectively with this phenomenon.
Once the political, social and economic systems of the states fail to provide political rights, social welfare and care and the adequate standard of decent living to their citizens, any talk about fighting corruption would be a sort of luxury which would fall on deaf ears.
It is a vicious cycle. Corruption in itself hinders development as it impairs the criteria upon which institutions are based and substitutes integrity and efficiency with nepotism, replaces public interest upon which public projects are based with private interests that lead to adopting decisions harming public interest.
Honorable audience,
The growing risk of corruption at the international and local levels of the United Nations has led to establishing the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2003 with a view to coordinating international efforts related to fighting corruption and consolidating the related national systems.
We, in the State of Qatar, have adopted several important measures to respond to the international endeavors in this respect and we ratified the aforesaid UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), and initiated many steps for the implementation of this Convention.
The first of these steps was the establishment of the National Committee for Integrity and Transparency (NCIT). We have provided it with all the facilities which would enable it to function with complete objectivity and independence.
The State of Qatar has occupied an advanced position among nations in fighting corruption as per the 2007 and 2008 classification of the Transparency International (TI) and has come in the first position at the Arab level as well.
I do not want to elaborate more on the issue as this Forum and others to come will review the various aspects of corruption. However, I would like to focus on a very important point, namely the religious, cultural and moral aspects of the problem of corruption.
Unless we act to build the open-minded and productive man armed with religious and moral values and aware of the duties of citizenship and its rights, our efforts would remain short of realizing its targeted objectives and the process of fighting corruption would remain a mere criminal act linked to the capacity of the judiciary and prosecution to arrest the culprits.
Many key factors made the State of Qatar occupy such an advanced position as per the TI ranking (Corruption Perceptions Index), chief of which is the nature of the Qatari society and its adherence to the moral values and principles of Islam which emphasizes the sanctity of public money and refraining from exploiting the public office for personal interests. Islam also enjoins good social reputation and integrity and counsels against dubious matters. Another factor is the role of educational institutions in instilling these values and principles in the minds of future generations.
Honorable audience,
While we appreciate your on-going efforts in this area, we are confident that the recommendations of this Forum will significantly contribute to our endeavors to bring about appropriate solutions to such a dilemma that impedes human progress and prevents nations around the world from enjoying a descent life.
To conclude, I wish this Forum all success and I wish you a pleasant stay in the State of Qatar.
May the peace and blessing of Allah be upon you.