Government

Panama failing to fight corruption

If countries were judged on their eagerness to sign agreements dealing with transparency and opposing corruption, Panama would receive high marks from international agencies that deal with this issue.

But when it comes to complying with those agreements, the story is different.

Today is International Day Against Corruption, which was started in 2005 by the United Nations. The event was started in connection with the passage of the organization's Convention against Corruption, which requires countries to criminalize the practice and to cooperate with each other to return assets obtained by these means.

In addition to supporting that convention, Panama also signed the Inter-American Convention against Corruption proposed by the Organization of American States in 1996, which establishes a commitment to pass a law to protect those who report corruption. That law has not yet been passed.

In 2006, President Martín Torrijos signed the Guatemala Declaration, in which Central American countries made commitments to show real results in combating corruption by 2010.

But little progress has been made in combatting corruption, according to various surveys.

A poll by the firm Unimer in November found that 33 percent of 1,211 asked believed that most or all public servants are corrupt, and 62.8 percent believes that at least a minority of public servants are corrupt.

According to the organization Transparency International, corruption is a major cause of poverty in the world

Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, said recently that corruption weakens competitiveness.