In 2019, the leadership of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan decided to develop and implement an anti-bribery management systems, guided by the provisions of the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the requirements of the international standard ISO 37001.
Understanding the importance and significance of this issue, within the framework of the development and implementation of the draft anti-bribery management systems, the management and staff of the Academy were assigned specific tasks:
- training and certification of personnel in the development of an effective and efficient anti-bribery management systems;
- definition and formalization of organizational and technical measures to counter bribery in the business processes of the Academy;
- obtaining international recognition of the compliance of the anti-bribery management systems from an independent accredited management systems. certification organization;
As part of personnel training and certification, in February 2020, a course of lectures was organized and conducted with the involvement of a certified international lecturer from an accredited international body for certification of personnel and management systems (PECB, Canada, https://pecb.com/). The course is based on the theoretical and practical world practice of studying the requirements of ISO 37001, as well as the implementation of effective and efficient management systems for combating bribery in organizations of various profiles. The result of the training course was a certification exam. All participants of the training course from the Academy have successfully passed the exam and are included in the international register of certified developers from PECB.
Additionally, realizing the importance of this training course, the leadership of the Academy decided to integrate the provisions on the application of ISO 37001 into the training programs for training civil servants, up to the development and conduct of separate courses on effective methods of combating corruption and certain forms of its manifestation.
Having received the necessary skills to develop and implement an anti-bribery management systems for the staff of the Academy, an analysis of its current activities from the perspective of corruption risk management was carried out. The results of the analysis made it possible to form a work plan, according to which a number of specific organizational and technical measures to counter bribery for business processes were determined. Certain measures were formalized in the form of specific procedures and rules in the following areas:
- Planning and management of activities;
- Due diligence;
- Financial measures;
- Non-financial measures;
- Implementation of anti-bribery mechanisms by managed organizations and business partners;
- Anti-Bribery Obligations;
- Gifts, acknowledgments, donations and similar incentives;
- Measures for inappropriate anti-bribery mechanisms;
- Reporting suspicions;
- Investigating and taking action against bribery.
Based on the risk-oriented and process approaches, which are the basis of ISO 37001, taking into account the developed organizational and technical measures, the Academy has implemented an anti-bribery management systems.
The next stage of the project was the selection of an organization capable of conducting an independent analysis of the compliance of the anti-bribery management systems for compliance with the requirements of the international standard ISO 37001. Analysis of the real situation in the domestic and foreign markets for certification services for management systems identified and determined the presence of various forms of confirmation of compliance: from accredited bodies ( according to ISO / IEC 17021-1) for certification of management systems and from non-accredited. Based on the importance of anti-bribery issues for the Academy, the management decided to undergo certification in the international accredited body “CERT International”.
A certification audit of the Academy’s Anti-Bribery Management Systems was organized and conducted in July 2020. The team of certified expert auditors noted the high degree of involvement of the Academy’s management and personnel in the functioning of the anti-bribery management systems, as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of the anti-bribery measures applied by the Academy. The result of the conformity assessment was the receipt of a certificate of compliance of the anti-bribery management systems with the requirements of the international standard ISO 37001: 2016. Thus, the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan became the first state organization in the Republic of Kazakhstan to have passed the certification of the anti-bribery management systems for compliance with the requirements of the international standard ISO 37001: 2016.
The certificate of conformity is registered in the international register of certificates of conformity from accredited bodies for certification of management systems (www.iafcertsearch.org).
