Transparency International regrets that the Law on Access to Public Information, as well as other instruments of transparency, were put in the freezer during the first stage of the pandemic.
The diagnosis of Transparency International (TI) for El Salvador is not encouraging. In the latest global corruption index, this institution reports significant failures in the country in this regard.
On the one hand, he claims that the “alarming concentration of power in the executive branch” has led to an “explosion of irregularities and corruption cases associated with the attention to COVID-19” in El Salvador.
He also points out that throughout the region, including El Salvador, citizens have faced obstacles when they want to access reliable and up-to-date information on health statistics and pandemic care.
In general terms, IT states that an important challenge facing the region is to ensure that emergency funds to alleviate the crisis are not lost to corruption and reach the beneficiaries. “Failure to provide this aid poses a risk of social unrest, fuels harmful populism and creates more poverty and inequality,” he added.
You might read: El Salvador failed in the 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index
In the particular case of El Salvador, he points out that, compared to previous years, which have already been stagnant in transparency and the fight against corruption, The “recession” of 2020 was “much worse.”
On the one hand, he cites “puzzling” irregularities. Among them, the purchase at an expensive price of medical supplies for almost 12 million dollars from a company dedicated to car repairs in Spain. He also points out that the country has not set clear criteria for the delivery of cash transfers.
In fact, the Court of Auditors said in May 2020 that the government had distributed $ 30 million to 100,000 people with unclear criteria.
Finally, Transparency International regrets that the Law on Access to Public Information, as well as other transparency instruments, were put in the freezer during the first stage of the pandemic.