sinembargo: Darío Ramírez*
Translated by Amanda Moody
Translated by Amanda Moody
Public officials take it for granted that public money is their money, to spend as they wish. Hence the mega-debts in the states and the burdensome expenses wasted on superficialities. Maybe there would be some mitigation if Mexico's economy were growing and we were administering abundance, as in the past. But this crisis is permanent.
The last cases of corruption published in the media reminded me of President Peña’s phrase, “corruption in Mexico is cultural”. At the time we all pounced on such an aberration. I still don't think it's cultural, however, what the president said has some truth: there is little impetus to reduce levels of corruption and a popular acceptance that we will always live up to our necks in it (“he that doesn't makes deals doesn't get ahead”). The desire for change goes hand in hand with the sacrifice which the political class would have to make when they stopped enjoying extralegal privileges. They are unlikely to make that sacrifice. This, however, does not imply that the progress of various government initiatives in the creation of stronger accountability and transparency controls be so slow. [MV Note: A National Anticorruption System was initated in April 2015 via various constitutional amendments, but implementing legislation has yet to be passed.]
While the Superior Auditor of the Federation is dealing with many years of backlog when reviewing the public account, the anomalies in spending are growing all the time. A few days ago, the Superior Auditor of the Federation reported that the use of 42.7 billion pesos needs to be clarified [US$2.4 billion] in the 2014 Public Account. And this is how corruption accumulates, without any penalty, with only a few news stories appearing when the Auditor decides to release information. But the system rewards the corrupt. That should be clear to us.
According to a story in Animal Politico: “Due to the economic situation [...], autonomous bodies revealed their austerity plans to save at least 65 million pesos [US$3.7 million].” Agencies such as human rights, transparency, auditing, educational assessment and competition were the most affected areas.
We can understand that they have to make spending cuts because of the crisis. But what is incomprehensible is the indecent inconsistency of the federal government in spending 4 billion pesos [US$226 million] on government advertising (i.e. propaganda) during 2015. That spending on advertising is equivalent, according to the newspaper Reforma, to the cuts that will be applied this year in four cabinet secretariats: the Secretariat of Public Education (3.36 billion pesos [US$189 million]), Economy (360 million pesos [US$20 million]), Energy (201 million pesos [US$11 million]) and the Treasury (150 million pesos [US$8.5 million]). The greatest beneficiaries, once again, were the television networks, with an income of 1.27 billion pesos [US$72 million] from federal agencies’ campaigns.
The day he disclosed this absurd figure, the same President asked government agencies to “do more with less”. Wouldn’t it be better if all the money for propaganda were taken away from all governments, political parties and autonomous bodies? It is the only way forward, because apparently the President and the governors like to go on television. Doing more with less is fine, but not while the presidential image is being promoted using indecent levels of expenditure.
During her stay in London, the official Hilda García - who works at the Secretariat of Public Administration, a government agency dedicated to fighting corruption in Mexico - enjoyed a dinner with champagne, caviar and salmon. All charged to us: the taxpayers. How can Hilda think that she can spend that without any problems? Why doesn’t it occur to her that to do so is also corruption? This information was revealed by Reuters in a report published a few days ago. The report, signed by Elinor Comlay, said that the Secretariat of Public Administration, a government agency supposedly responsible for overseeing the accountability of the federal government, “admits it has little idea of how its own employees spend money abroad". And I would add that we also have no idea how public money is spent in the government agencies.
What I'm moving towards is that no legal counterbalance exists to punish the inappropriate expenses (caviar, propaganda, luxuries, etc.) and no ethical counterbalance to combat the practice - which is not the same as the culture. Until such mechanisms exist, we’ll be hard pressed to see a real change. Here, as in many other cases, the widespread incentive is impunity. That is, the President can spend these amounts to get on TV simply (and please forgive me for stating the obvious) just because he can. And why can he? Because there is no real counterbalance, no real mechanism to punish him: neither political, nor social, nor legal. The widespread practice of corruption is so entrenched that changing it involves not only a legal change of direction, but also a change in how we all think about corruption and obtaining benefit.
Examples of bad government acts happen every day right in front of us. And after a few days of media scandal, the incident soon becomes part of history, because there’s already a new case in the headlines. No party has the political will to make a change, because they would have to be part of that change. Better to cover up for each other while freely spending our money. Hopefully, the new anti-corruption legal framework will provide the momentum needed to change this practice in all areas. Spanish original
*Dario Ramírez is the Mexico director of Article 19, an international organization which defends freedom of expression and information. He studied International Relations at the Iberoamericana University and has a Masters in International Law from the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of numerous articles on freedom of expression, access to information, media and human rights and he teaches journalism. He worked in the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations (UNHCR) in Latin America and Africa. @Dariormrs