Berlin: Rural campaigner Anna Hazare, along with a Nigerian drugs chief and a sacked Samoan government auditor will be honoured for their work against corruption this weekend, the Transparency International Watchdog said.

The Berlin-based non-governmental organisation will give its 2003 Integrity Awards at the opening Sunday of an international anti-corruption conference in Seoul.

Transparency, which every year publishes a report on corruption around the world, said the three had taken a brave stand against corrupt practices.

The Nigerian, Dora Akunyili, is head of that country's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.

Transparency said since April 2001 she had defied death threats while tackling corrupt practices in the manufacturing, import and export of drugs, cosmetics and food products, "saving the lives of thousands of innocent Nigerians."

Hazare, also known as Kisan Babu Rao, has campaigned for more than 20 years against corruption at high levels in Maharashtra.

Sua Rimoni Ah Chong, who was controller and chief auditor of Samoa, was dismissed in 1995 after implicating six ministers in improper a activities and payments, Transparency said.

The NGO will also posthumously honour Abdelhai Beliarduh, an Algerian investigative journalist, and Antonio Siba-Siba Macuacua, a Central Bank official in Mozambique killed shortly before he was due to submit a report on the financial situation of the country's largest commercial bank.

Agencies