20 June 2019 - CRIMJUST held a celebration ceremony to mark the completion of the "Basic Course on Ethics for Public Servants: a Tool to Combat Corruption" by all personnel of the National Borders Service (SENAFRONT) of Panama. Some 4,201 officials, including 299 women, were trained as a result of this initiative attesting of the commitment of SENAFRONT to implement robust anti-corruption measures.
During the ceremony, participants were presented with certificates of completion in the presence of Eric Estrada, Director General of SENAFRONT, Angélica Maytín, Director General of the National Authority for Transparency and Access to Information, Melisa Flynn, Director of Operations of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Stacy de la Torre, UNODC Regional Anti-Corruption Advisor.
Angélica Maytín congratulated personnel that had successfully completed the course, commending one unit in particular for having erected signs in various areas of the SENAFRONT building displaying key learnings from the ethics training.
The CRIMJUST programme was conceived on the underlying premise that organized crime groups largely depend on corruption to achieve their ends. It is why the UNODC seeks to provide states with the technical support needed to identify and mitigate the threat posed by corruption, which continues to undermine the efficiency of law enforcement worldwide. The UNODC, she said, recognizes the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies in preserving institutional integrity given the pervasive risk of corruption.
Finally, Director General of SENAFRONT, thanked the UNODC and ANTAI for developing the ethics course as well as offered to make available the facilities of the Regional Anti-Corruption Academy for trainings of other public servants.
The original article was published on the website of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean here.
This activity was implemented as part of CRIMJUST's component to strengthen institutional integrity. It was funded by the European Union under the framework of the "Cocaine Route Programme". CRIMJUST seeks to enhance law enforcement and judicial counter-narcotic strategies beyond interdiction activities and to foster transnational responses targeting each stage of the drug supply chain.
For more information, please visit:
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean (
UNODC ROSEN)
- European Union "Cocaine Route Programme"
Additional components of CRIMJUST are funded by
- Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL)