Australia's provider of international aid funding, AusAid, has no protocol regarding the reporting of allegations of foreign bribery!

AusAid is a major provider of Halliburton's international aid contracts from the Australian Government.  In Australia the corporation has been masquerading as a "South Australian Based Company"

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) has just announced that small bribes to foreign officials to encourage more beaureaucratic haste, known as "facilitation payments" are illegal under most Australian State laws

[Extract from today's Australian]

The report highlights significant lapses by federal government departments in relation to reporting foreign bribery allegations, to the point that AusAID - which awards a significant number of overseas contracts - did not know that it should report overseas bribery allegations to the Australian Federal Police.

 

AusAID's fraud control policy did not mention bribery of foreign officials, and senior officials did not know if an allegation of bribing foreign officials in relation to an Official Development Assistance contract would be investigated, let alone reported.

 What this means is that bribes Halliburton makes in Iraq from its Adelaide office would be completely "un-noticed."

Earlier Australian Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock yesterday downplayed the OECD's findings, saying that the number of Australian companies  engaging in "facilitation payments" was minimal.  However, the Australian Chamber of Commerce has told OECD investigators that "Australian SMEs (small and medium enterprises) would rarely propose bribes in the context of doing business internationally; however, they would respond to solicitations for facilitation payments,"

Also this weekThe Australian Prime, Foreign and Trade Ministers have t been implicated in revelations of Australian companies paying bribes to the Saddam Regime 

Australia's Defence Minister (who, along with the Foreign Minister is a Senator for South Australia) is expected to resign within several days to take up the post of Australian Ambassador to the United Nations.  Fellow Senator for South Australia, Finance Minister Nick Minchin, is strongly tipped to assume control of the Defence Ministry while retaining his current portfolio.

The Foreign Minister is expected to exchange portfolios with the Treasurer in a forthcoming Federal Cabinet "reshuffle".