The NACC's second birthday

July 8, 2025

The NACC has been a huge disappointment. It continues to attempt to measure its success by the number of investigations, the number of reports and the prosecutions and sentances which might follow.

Prof Brown’s article contains important facts and an investigator’s eye for cases. But it too fails to acknowledge the public’s scorn and mistrust for the NACC and its founders.

The NACC’s leadership has consistently failed to define for its staff and its public what it is there do do. It never did put the right graphs on the wall and it never did measure real progress.

The NACC will succeed if corruption declines and it will gain trust only when it is earned. That success cannot be measured by inputs. This is not work that can be judged by an investigator, an ombudsman or an auditor.

The NACC is making no progress because it has not found the right mountains to climb. It is true that insightful corruption reports, thorough investigations, findings and prosections produce a deterrent effect and that deterrent effect may be helpful in reducing corruption. But even that deterrent effect, not measured by the NACC, its critics or its observers, is only an input.

The NACC still does not know its job.