and entering them explicitly in the accounting system. In South Africa, SOEs and the executive authority agree on a “Corporate Objective Statement” which expresses in terms of outputs the financial and non-financial performance that the SOE is expected to meet. This document is public.

Regarding petty corruption, performance improvement can be considerable. In Andhra Pradesh, transmission and distribution losses were reduced from 38 to 26 percent 19992003 in large part through metering, theft control and the regularization of 2.25 million unauthorized connections (Gulati and Rao, 2006). As part of a process of enterprise reform, a number of human resources tools can be used to help improve performance and reduce corruption amongst public officials including training (especially on codes of conduct), whistleblower protection, complaints mechanisms, improved disciplinary procedures, transferring staff in posts considered ‘at risk,’ random checks on performance by investigators posing as customers and reducing anonymity through name tags and other information disclosure (Sohail and Cavill, 2007).

On the demand side, citizen’s charters can clarify the standards that consumers can expect in terms of quality, timeliness, cost and coverage of services. These can be based on regulatory standards where appropriate but should be actively disseminated to the public alongside information on complaint and redress mechanisms. An additional tool is the use of freedom of information acts. These have been passed with little impact in a number of countries,<sup>22</sup> but when well designed, used to provide specific information on services and supported with active civil society right to information campaigns, they have had some notable successes in improving infrastructure outcomes (See Box 8).<sup>23</sup> The Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government in the Philippines was founded to provide a monitoring role utilizing information provided by governments and its first case in 1987 involved following up on an announcement by the Department of Public Works and Highways that 20 projects had been completed in Abra. The group was able to document that some projects had not begun and others had been completed with substandard materials. As a result of its investigation, eleven officials were found guilty of misconduct and dismissed (Sundet, 2004).

Citizen report cards are a related approach. The report card process surveys households about their experience and satisfaction interacting with public officials and receiving government services. They can be combined with a social audit where official reports of works and expenditures are reviewed and compared to the results of customer surveys. The World Bank-supported Indonesia Urban Sector Development Reform Project also

> 22More than 50 countries have freedom of information laws, and 15–20 more are considering them. But the mere existence of a freedom of information law is clearly inadequate.  A recent survey of the effectiveness of freedom of information laws in Armenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Peru and South Africa found that, on average, only 35 percent of requests for information were fulfilled (sources: <u>http://www1.worldbank.org/prem/PREMNotes/premnote93.pdf</u> and http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/legal/freedom.htm)

> 23 Good design incorporates  a presumption in favor of information release, clear and simple procedures for requests, responses and timings, an appeal mechanism and penalties for non-complying officials.

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