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SPECIAL REPORTS -
Tuesday 05 January 2010 |
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HONDURAS:
Entrenched Corruption Stymies Hope
By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA (IPS) - Corruption in Honduras
has taken root at every level of the state,
which is helpless to combat it because of
the lack of credibility of most of its
institutions, the erosion of social capital
and the public perception that the problem
is here to stay.
This is the conclusion reached by the
National Transparency Report produced by the
National Anti-Corruption Council (CNA), a
state body that operates independently in
this country governed by the de facto
government of Roberto Micheletti, who
replaced President Manuel Zelaya when he was
overthrown in a Jun. 28 coup.
The report analyses the state of corruption
in the last two years and indicates that the
problem is the third major cause for concern
among Hondurans, after crime and
unemployment.
"The fact that these three problems stand
out among the concerns of the general public
shows that the institutional changes needed
for greater development are not taking
place," Rolando Sierra, the report's
coordinator, told IPS.
He said that "until the rule of law is
strengthened in this country, popular
perceptions will continue to blame the
justice system for failing to punish the
corrupt."
Over the past decade, Honduras' score has
hovered between 2.3 and 2.7 on the
Corruption Perceptions Index published by
the Berlin-based global anti-corruption
watchdog Transparency International, which
uses a scale of zero to 10, with zero
indicating the highest corruption
perception.
Honduras has not been able to climb out of
the cellar of the most corrupt countries,
Sierra said. The latest index, for 2009,
awards it a score of 2.5.
The CNA report concentrates on state
contracts and procurement, and addresses
issues such as social capital, the
perception of corruption, access to public
information and the transparency law.
Sierra said there was a "slight improvement"
in terms of anti-corruption legislation, but
that confidence in oversight institutions
remained low, with only between 20 and 40
percent of respondents in a national survey
expressing trust. "None of them reached a
credibility level of over 50 percent," he
said.
This collective lack of trust is due to
eloquent facts, such as that "no one has
ever been imprisoned for corruption," while
transparency indicators show that "the
number of cases is increasing," the expert
said.
"This country faces the challenge of
ushering in democratic governance by means
of a new institutional order," Sierra said.
A survey on perceptions of corruption, which
informed the CNA report, showed that 95
percent of Hondurans feel there is a great
deal of corruption.
Bribing the police, dubious financing of
political campaigns and diversion of funds
from public projects are perceived as the
three most common types of corruption.
They are followed by bribery of officials to
secure state procurement contracts,
providing jobs to party activists, bribery
of judges, tax evasion, selling off public
property for a song, payment of illegal
middlemen to obtain documents, theft of
court files and providing employment for
relatives.
The survey interviewed 1,350 people from 16
out of the 18 Honduran provinces, making it
highly representative, Sierra said.
The responses indicate that corruption in
Honduras is to be found in all three
branches of the state. The judicial branch
has the highest perception of corruption,
complained of by 45.9 percent of the
interviewees, followed by the executive
branch with 24.8 percent, and the
legislative branch with 20 percent.
Within the private sector, owners of large
companies are perceived by 78.1 percent of
respondents as being guilty of acts of
corruption, foreign companies by 13.4
percent and small and medium business owners
by 1.5 percent.
In civil society, trade unions were
perceived as corrupt by 37.7 percent of
respondents, professional associations by
36.1 percent and non-governmental
organisations by 9.1 percent.
The report concludes that corruption is an
everyday practice and way-of-life in the
country.
The study also found there was a decline in
social capital, defined as "the social
norms, agreements, values and relations that
are rooted in the structure of a community
of individuals and that help them to act in
concert to achieve common goals," because of
the low level of trust most Hondurans have
in other people.
Among the institutions that Hondurans still
express confidence towards, the foremost are
the Catholic and evangelical churches, with
39 and 36 percent of interviewees,
respectively, responding favourably.
They are followed by international aid
agencies, with 20 percent; the media, with
18 percent; and the armed forces, with 15
percent, three percentage points lower than
in the previous survey carried out in 2006.
The study points out that this information
was gathered in May 2009, before the June
coup.
According to businessman Juan Ferrera, the
low levels of trust in other people and in
institutions lead to generalised scepticism
among the population, block initiatives for
social transformation and increase
uncertainty about the possibility of a
better future.
Ferrera, a former head of the Honduran
National Business Council (COHEP), told IPS
the mistrust of state contracts and
acquisitions, "one of the most discretionary
areas of public administration," was
remarkably high.
The most usual forms of corruption in public
administration occur through direct and
emergency contracting, changing clauses in
contracts during the tender process, or
declaring the tender process void because of
a lack of bids, or lack of qualified bids.
Magda Cálix, a lawyer who is an expert on
public administration, told IPS that the
sectors most prone to corruption are health,
education, infrastructure,
telecommunications, electricity, and water
and sanitation.
One of the most notorious cases of
corruption in the last two years was the
approval by parliament of a direct purchase
of overpriced electricity from coal-fired
plants, in spite of warnings from regulatory
bodies and environmental organisations.
Another was a concession to the armed forces
to build a civilian air terminal at the
Palmerola air force base, in the central
Comayagua valley, and a third was the
spending of over 150,000 dollars to print
windshield stickers for a scheme to cut down
on vehicle traffic which was never
implemented.
Cálix emphasised there are 12 laws in force
that "attempt to curb corruption in
contracts and acquisitions, but they are
ambiguously worded and leave loopholes for
discretionality and corruption."
For example, two years ago a transparency
law came into effect to facilitate access to
public information, which was seen as a
concrete step against corruption.
But in spite of the law's requirements to do
so, the majority of state institutions
publish little or nothing on their web sites
about their budgets, salaries, contracts,
financial reports or citizen participation.
At the end of its report, CNA proposes a
comprehensive anti-corruption policy to
strengthen independent auditing,
accountability, professionalisation of the
public administration, fraud prevention
measures and the development of a culture of
transparency. |
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