Today, on 25 th of November, in the Grand Poet Hotel, the opening event took place for the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial mechanism co-financed program “International Police Cooperation and Combating Crime” for the period 2014-2021.
Corruption prevention and combating bureau in the framework of the program received support for the implementation of the project “Support for the establishment of a whistle-blowing system in Latvia”. The aim of the Project is to increase general awareness and promote society to report corruption and other latent crime, meanwhile, providing safe reporting channel and strenghten KNAB’s competence in detecting and investigating corruption offenses.
The KNAB’s Project has three activities: development and implementation of an online whistle-blowing platform; organisation of two targeted public awareness campaigns with an objective to inform society about signs of corruption, available channels for whistle blowing and reducing tolerance towards corruption; improvement of skills and capabilities of officials working with prevention and combating of corruption.
The opening event was attended by the KNAB Head Jēkabs Straume, officials from the Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Welfare, State Police, State Revenue Service, Financial Intelligence Service. Participants of the event were addresse by Mr. Kristian Ødegaard, Ambassador of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Riga, Mr. Matthew Barr, Head of Division at the ODGP of the Council of Europe, Ms. Mualla Cirakli, Country officer of the Financial Mechanism Office.
In his speech the Head of KNAB Jēkabs Straume pointed out that KNAB fights corruption in Latvia in a coordinated and comprehensive way through prevention, investigation and education. Only by the interaction of all three directions we can achieve the best results. Therefore, in the KNAB’s Project is included not only an online reporting platform, but also major social campaigns and strengthening of the KNAB capacity. In the conclusion of his speech the Head of the KNAB thanked EEA Financial mechanism for its support in development of new techniques to fight corruption.
Funding for the project “Support for the establishment of a whistle-blowing system in Latvia” is 650 000 euro, including 552 000 euro EEA co-financing and 97 000 euro national co-financing.
The total funding for the Program is 17 647 059 euro. The EEA allocation is 85% or 15 000 000 euro, while the national allocation is 15% or 2 647 059 euro. The program shall be implemented until 31st of December 2024.
