La Jornada: Juan Carlos Miranda
Translated by Mariana Silva
There are still great problems in Mexico as regards lack of transparency at a local level, since 75 per cent of all municipalities comply with only one fifth of the transparency practices enforced at a national level and evaluated by the 2012 Index of Municipal Budget Information, developed by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute (IMCO).
When presenting the results for this year, the director of the organization, Juan Pardinas, explained that from a total of 364 municipalities that were evaluated, 274 (75.2 per cent) do not comply with over 21 per cent of the recommendations related to better practices, and only three of them (one per cent) have published their budget in plain language.
The specialist considers that Mexico's public debt should be more subject to controls, as in the case of Brazil, where a Law of Fiscal Responsibility was established to control all three levels of government.
In a study about the way municipalities have managed their public expenditures, the IMCO found that from 364 municipalities, there were only 330 cases in which they could gather the necessary information to estimate the rate of growth of personnel services. And within that figure, 234 (71 per cent) doubled their spending on personnel services from 2000 to 2010.
Pardinas also stated that the information that most municipalities omit is related to trade union benefits, and the police forces itemizing the number of employees, including those who have passed tests of trustworthiness. Spanish original