VenEconomy: Party On for Corruption in Venezuela From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune December 5, 2014
A year ago, President Nicolás Maduro requested that Parliament with a matter of urgency give him special legislative powers so that he could fight corruption and his bogus "economic war," which he blames for the harsh economic crisis eating away Venezuela.
Once the 12-month period was over, Maduro had failed in both of these purposes. The economic crisis continues to wreak havoc while corruption takes root across the entire government system of the Revolution.
For starters, the same procedure with which the enabling powers were granted to Maduro was plagued with actions from the parliamentary bloc of the ruling party PSUV away from ethics and legality.
The result is that most of the 57 decree-laws promulgated by Maduro show contempt for liberty and private property; these also concentrate power and the control of the State and increase the margin for discretion, therefore, promote the creation of hotbeds of corruption.
Of the 57 decree-laws, only one is aimed at the subject of corruption (the Anti-Corruption Act) and the announcement of the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Body.
Transparencia Venezuela, an NGO leading the fight against corruption, warned that the creation of this new body violates the laws, the Constitution and international good practices, describing it as an "agency to be created whose maximum authority is the only thing we know about, and also lacks planning and mechanisms for measuring success, effectiveness, and/or the reduction of corruption or impunity."
Raised this way the weak position of the Maduro government to cope with the rampant corruption in the country, it's not surprising that Venezuela has fared badly once more in this year's Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International every year since 1995.
Venezuela ranked 161th out of 170 countries (it barely scored 19 points out of 100 this year), a very similar position for the last eight years, with which is made evident that the country remains stalled in its fight against corruption and persists in being perceived with a high risk of corruption in the public sector.
Just as regrettable is that Venezuela has been placed this year in the queue of Latin American countries in terms of corruption.
According to Transparencia Venezuela, "a good result can be obtained in the Corruption Perceptions Index when there are mechanisms of open government through which the public can demand accountability from their leaders, while a bad score evidences a context where bribery prevails, the acts of corruption go unpunished and public institutions don't address the needs of citizens, such as occurs in the Venezuelan context with an impunity level higher than 95%."
It’s quite regrettable, indeed, and constitutes a criminal negligence that the Government persists in ignoring and curb corruption at a time when millions of Venezuelans are living the hardships of an unparalleled economic crisis in the country.
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