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These days, Colombia's media seem to talk of nothing but corruption, with four major graft scandals competing for attention
BOGOTA (TrustLaw) - These days, Colombia’s media seem to talk of nothing but corruption, with four major graft scandals competing for attention.
In one of the most dramatic cases police raided the National Narcotics Directorate, the government agency that manages assets seized from drug traffickers, on suspicion of widespread corruption.
Accusations of fraud in tendering public contracts at the office of Bogotá’s mayor are also all across the news. Two other scandals dominating the headlines are about claims of misuse of government subsidies and of illegal wiretapping by state agents dating back to the government of the last president, Alvaro Uribe.
The scandals have prompted renewed calls for the new government to step up its efforts to tackle rampant political corruption in the Andean nation.
Earlier this month, Colombian authorities seized control of the narcotics directorate, which manages over 76,000 assets seized from drug traffickers over the last three decades, including fine art, houses, buildings and farms.
Justice Minister German Vargas said he ordered the raid on the suspicion that there had been ‘hundreds of irregularities and many serious anomalies’ at the drug agency.
Local media reported that police investigators had found drug traffickers holding on to properties earlier seized by the agency, and officials tampering state records and falsifying the real value of assets up for sale or auction.
In response, job contracts of a quarter of the state agency’s 405 employees will not be renewed and new employees will have to undergo lie detector tests, Vargas said.
EMBATTLED BOGOTA MAYOR
In October, Colombia’s Inspector General asked Bogotá’s mayor, Samuel Moreno, and around 18 other government officials, including the mayor’s brother, senator Ivan Moreno, to respond to accusations made by a local businessman and lawmakers from Moreno’s own opposition party that major public work contracts in the capital, worth some $550 million, were fraudulently granted to companies in exchange for payment.
The Inspector General has opened a formal investigation into the corruption claims.
The mayor has repeatedly said he has received no kickbacks from construction companies and that the claims are part of a public smear campaign to discredit him ahead of legislative elections.
Many Bogota residents blame delays in completing road works across the capital on the so-called ‘cartel contract’ scandal. The mayor’s approval ratings have plummeted as a result.
Unresolved corruption scandals are still lingering on from the time of the Uribe government, which exited in August after eight years in power.
The main ones include accusations of the illegal wiretapping of journalists, politicians and human rights activists deemed to be opponents of the Uribe government by the secret police, first made by Colombia’s leading news weekly La Semana.
Also, Colombian media have said government subsidies meant for small farmers were diverted instead to rich families, beauty queens and friends of a government minister in Uribe's administration. In return, the media said, those who received the money helped fund minister Arias’s unsuccessful bid for the Conservative party’s presidential nomination.
The government minister, who has not been charged with anything, denies the claims.
GOVERNMENT REACTION
The string of corruption scandals has prompted Colombia’s new president, Juan Manuel Santos, to reiterate his commitment to get tough on corruption, which he has described as a national crusade. The aim of his administration is to ‘govern from a glass box, with total transparency’, he said last month.
As part of the government’s fight against corruption, which it says is one of the major obstacles to doing business in Colombia, it is proposing a new anti-corruption bill.
The bill aims to strengthen internal checks and balances in government agencies and background checks on government officials, as well as toughen sanctions against corrupt politicians, especially those who use kickbacks to fund their election campaigns.
But the Santos government faces a tough challenge in a country where anti-graft efforts appear to be making little headway. According to Transparency International, the anti-corruption watchdog, Colombia ranked 78th of 178 countries in the organisation's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, a drop of three places since 2009.
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