QCOSTARICA — President Rodrigo Chaves’ anti-corruption agenda, which became one of the distinctive elements of his election campaign, seems completely relegated in the legislative arena, two-thirds of the way through his administration.
Although it was one of the relevant issues of his electoral promise, placed in the fourth point of his program “With courage for the progress of Costa Rica”, only 2 of the 110 bills presented by the Executive Branch during his administration refer to this issue; a little less than 2%.
Of these proposals, ley 23.104, “Law of incentives for reporting in the fight against corruption” was archived after the committee was accused of repeating aspects already included in the legislation, while ley 23.499, “Law of promotion of reporting and protection of whistleblowers against labor retaliation” became the only law of this administration on this matter, although after the essential part of the campaign promise, offering rewards to whistleblowers of these illicit activities, was withdrawn, after the Attorney General’s Office pointed out problems in the proposal.
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Thus, of the 42 laws that have been approved by the Chaves administration in the current Legislative Assembly, only one, ley 10.437, and after a significant cut, refers to the issue of corruption; barely 2% of the total. Very far from the priority that the fiscal issues have taken.
This backlog showed no signs of change during the first call for bill for the sixth extraordinary session, the penultimate period in which the Executive controls the legislative agenda: of the 124 bill that were initially called, only one, ley 23,475, “reform to the public contracting law to guarantee transparency in commercial practices” presented by deputy Jorge Rojas, can be placed in this field, although it was not related to any of Chaves’ campaign offers (avoiding collusive and abusive practices by contractors).
In contrast, the Executive called for five bills that go in the opposite direction; in the direction of the Jaguar project, which the Constitutional Court rejected in two previous versions because it considered that its objective was to reduce controls on public contracting. In other words, the anti-control agenda is more relevant than the agenda to strengthen the fight against corruption.
The agenda falls behind
Of the ten promises made by Chaves during his campaign, there is also no evidence of progress beyond the initiatives that require legislation. Some were even shelved by the president himself, as was the case with the offer to broadcast sessions of the Government Council and governing bodies.
It is not that it is an issue in which the country does not require progress. Jimmy Bolaños, executive director of the Costa Rica Íntegra association, indicated that since 2021, this organization has presented a report on pending aspects in the country with respect to the United Nations Convention against corruption, in which gaps were identified in terms of mechanisms to facilitate the filing of complaints or protect against possible reprisals, as well as the lack of sufficient and specialized human resources in entities such as the Comptroller’s Office, the Public Ethics Prosecutor’s Office and the Deputy Prosecutor’s Office for Integrity, Transparency and Anti-Corruption.
In this regard, Bolaños stressed that the approval of the legislative reform was an important step to avoid retaliation in the workplace, and that it was extended not only to the public sphere, but also to the private sector, but he regretted that in this matter there is no proper disclosure.
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Regarding other advances, Bolaños commented that he has not perceived movements in the direction of tougher legislation, and called attention to the fact that the proposal to concentrate internal audits in the Comptroller’s Office, instead of being in line with the reform of the Jaguar law that sought to delimit the auditing entity, would strengthen its scope of inspection and control.
“I do not believe that they will promote this, the Comptroller’s Office can have about 600 auditors, while there can be more than 250 audits, it would be very complicated,” Bolaños commented.
Article translated and adapted from SemanarioUniversidad.com. Read the original in Spanish here.
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