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EVEN as the political noise on matters of graft and corruption
reaches a deafening crescendo (stirred up by the usual suspects, of
course) President Gloria Arroyo and her administration has received
a glowing seal of approval from the government of the United States
for its efforts to confront corruption.
With the blessings of the powers that be in
Washington D.C., the US government agency Millennium Challenge Corp.
(MCC) has raised its ranking of the Philippines to a higher notch
making the country eligible for large-scale grants from the MCC’s
Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) threshold program which allocates
funding to combat corruption in the public sector.
This development comes after the Philippines
successfully completed a two year Threshold Country Program on
anti-corruption implemented by the MCC.
In announcing the good news, MCC Chief Executive
Officer John Danilovich praised the Philippine government for “its
commitment to tackling difficult challenges and improving the lives
of its people.”
Danilovich, who carries the rank of ambassador,
went on to advise: “While eligibility is an essential first step,
the Philippines must maintain its performance on the MCC selection
criteria and must now begin a broad based consultative process with
its people to develop a proposal that addresses the country’s
barriers to poverty education and economic growth.”
The MCC is the brainchild of US President George
W. Bush who directed its formation in 2004 to provide practical
incentives for good governance among developing countries. It works
under the direction of the State Department, and its board of
directors is headed by US Secretary of State Condi Rice.
Now that the MCC has designated the Philippines
as a “Compact Country,” a team from its US base is expected to
arrive in Manila to prepare a program for enhanced and intensified
development assistance in three key areas of governance—namely
political, social and economic.
According to the MCC, it assessed the degree to
which these three factors promoted broad based sustainable economic
growth.
In its announcement the MCC pointed out that it
“based its decision on policy indicators provide by independent
third party institutions using objectives and publicly available
data and an analytically rigorous methodology.”
The Philippines was further evaluated using
other indicators such as government accountability, rule of law,
controlling corruption, natural resources management, health
expenditure, primary education, sound fiscal and trade policies and
controlling inflation.
While happily acknowledging that the MCC rating
was a clear indication of her administration’s drive against graft
and corruption, President Arroyo admitted that much still needs to
be done for the “long term prosperity and stability of the
nation.”
And losing no time on the heels of the glad
tidings from the MCC, the President designated Finance Secretary
Margarito Teves to work with her office and other government
agencies, non-government organizations and the private sector to
prepare a five-year plan to reduce poverty which would then be
forwarded to the MCC as a grant proposal.
The amount of grant funding available for a
country that is privileged to achieve the status of “Compact
Country” can be quite substantial.
Two countries elevated to that status in recent
months were Tanzania and Kenya, and they received $696 million and
$698 million respectively from the MCC for poverty reduction and
economic growth projects.
bizzfizz_98@yahoo.com.
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