Mexico has once again demonstrated that its anti-corruption policies are ineffective. The North American country has fallen three places in the Global Index of Perception of Corruption of 2018, the last year of the Administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, when positioning itself in number 138 of 180 countries evaluated. With that result, it is below all the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and at the bottom of the group’s list of the region.
An anti-corruption system that was never properly implemented, the inability to punish those responsible, the low results in the recovery of stolen assets and the lack of damage repair in favor of the victims are some of the causes of Mexico’s poor results on the Transparency International organization index.
The lack of a General Prosecutor’s Office completely independent of the executive branch has also been key in the score obtained. In the 2018 edition, Mexico has accumulated 28 points on a scale in which 0 is the most corrupt and 100, the least.
Photo: Luis Pérez de Acha
“The preventive measures taken until now lose effectiveness when those who participate in corrupt networks know that they will not be sentenced and that they will be able to keep resources diverted from the public treasury,” says the director of the Transparency International office in Mexico, Eduardo Bohórquez, in relation to the impunity that prevails in the Mexican Justice.
The Government of Enrique Peña Nieto had managed to position itself in spot 135 in 2017, but the fight against Mexican corruption was already plummeting. With this new report, Mexico is sinking again for the fourth consecutive year.
The country has failed to dismantle the networks of political and social corruption detected, according to the Mexican office. In addition, most of the adopted provisions are “preventive in nature” and many were ineffective, he points out.
The new report leaves Mexico as the last OECD country, behind Hungary or Greece, which in recent years has had to face serious problems of governance and economic viability. It is also positioned badly in the region, behind Brazil and Argentina.
The international organization also points out that the corruption scandals that rocked Peña Nieto’s sexennium, such as the case of former governor Javier Duarte in Veracruz or the former president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party Humberto Moreira, have contributed significantly to damage the image of the country. As did the lack of freedom of speech, marked by the killings of journalists, another of the weak points of the former head of state. “Without press that monitors the Government, the ability to prevent and report corruption is limited”
Among the tasks recommended to López Obrador is the need to reverse the result that is the dismantling of criminal networks that have corrupted public institutions and have led to the irregular transfer of economic resources. A major challenge for the president who offered a pardon to those involved in corruption cases prior to his administration.
TYT Newsroom with information from the Global Index of Perception of Corruption 2018