A few days ahead of the second round of presidential elections, we share a round-up of the candiates’ proposals on the fight against corruption:
Gustavo Petro
Countering complaints about corruption:
- Restructure the National Police, that takes into account the territorial particularities and ways to deal with corruption, including a major component of public oversight.
- Restructure the National Protection Unit (UNP) to tackle the various attacks, reprisals and threats against social leaders.
- Promote legislation to protect whistleblowers denouncing corruption.
Judicial branch and control entities:
- Proposed reform to the Attorney General’s Office and Comptroller’s Office, eliminating the duplication of functions, including the large, inefficient and costly national and territorial payrolls.
- Transfer the Attorney General’s Office to the Judiciary and transform it into one major Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
- Promote a justice reform that is defined by: judicial independence, meritocracy, administrative and budgetary autonomy, the fight against corruption and the strengthening of alternative mechanisms for conflict resolution.
- Offer restorative justice services in “Justice Centers” and “Public Cohabitation Centers”, in the Attorney General’s Office, in criminal courts and penitentiary centers via restorative justice measures.
- Strengthen restorative justice. Prison will no longer be a place where rights are violated, but rather it will become a space for resocialization.
Public contracting:
- Strengthen effective oversight of all public procurement to ensure transparency, economy and efficiency.
Transparency and access to public information:
- Promotion of participatory budgets, with full access to public information on the entire resource management cycle at all levels of State in order to ensure that finances are available to citizens.
- Provide full guarantees for access to public information.
Other proposals:
- Reform the Registrar’s Office and the National Electoral Council, guaranteeing their independence, diversity in representation, and the technological sovereignty of the electoral system.
- Establish an Independent Commission as requested by the United Nations, which would be able to investigate the most significant incidences of corruption in the country.
- Eliminate the intermediary role played by Congress Representatives in the execution of the budget.
- Intervene in the School Meals Program (known as PAE for its Spanish acronym).
Rodolfo Hernández
Countering complaints about corruption:
- Create a virtual institute that returns money that has been stolen through corruption to Colombians. The idea is to reward members of the public who denounce corruption with up to 20% of what is recovered.
- Encourage greater public oversight, facilitating their work. They would receive financial ‘rewards’ from the money recovered from the corrupt politicians they expose.
Judicial branch and control entities:
- Reform the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the appointment of the General Prosecutor. Include veto power by the Supreme Court of Justice to limit the nominal power of the Executive.
- Establish procedural response times that force both judges and magistrates to rule in a timely manner.
- Rigorously use meritocracy as best practice for appointments to positions in the administration of justice, working hand-in-hand with universities and international auditors.
- Continuously evaluate the activities and actions taken by control entities; any official who fails to comply will be dismissed.
- Require control entities to deliver tangible results on their monitoring of public bodies in compliance with Law 80 of 1993.
- Decongest the courts, handing over small cases to the legal clinics at public and private universities.
- Fully apply justice, with zero tolerance of any act of corruption. Anyone who is found guilty of stealing resources will be incarcerated and deprived of their liberty. The expiration of terms will not be permitted to serve as an ally of the corrupt.
Public contracting:
- Design a monitoring process for procurement and contracting that guarantees transparency in public bidding processes, and ensure the strict application of international standards.
- Implement international audits of high-value contracts, at the discretion of the Executive.
- Ensure that all procurement and contracting must apply mechanisms such as SECOP II, and that all sectors implement the Standard Specifications.
Transparency and access to public information:
- Facilitate greater societal control over government activities through Digital Government, which will generate more public trust in institutions. Establish a government that is in greater contact with the people, open to transparency and participation.
- Give greater visibility to those officials who commit errors or acts of corruption through exercises focused on displaying the moral highground.
- Hold a weekly morning press conference where officials are publicly held accountable for their actions.
Other proposals:
- Promote a rule that requires a review of the finances of State workers and officials.
- Respect the diplomatic career that, due to its specialization, requires highly trained personnel. Eliminatess diplomatic bureaucracy.
- Create a central fiscal control system to reduce corruption.