MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

OAS: “The fight against corruption does not rest solely on public authorities”

Secretary General Insulza said that ”we must jointly tackle this problem that affects us all and that we must all work together to solve.”

The Organization of American States (OAS), Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, celebrated International Anti-Corruption Day (December 9) calling on the international community to reaffirm their commitment to fight corruption and to “jointly tackle this problem that affects us all and that we must all work together to solve.”

 Among the works carried out by the Mechanism, said Insulza are the rounds of 'inter pares' analysis dealing with thirty countries of the region, which have addressed the improvement of provisions essential to the prevention of conflicts of interests, safeguarding public funds, punishing corrupt practices and achieving transparency in government procurement and the hiring of public servants.

Secretary General Insulza added that “aware that the fight against corruption does not rest solely with public authorities, MESICIC has involved civil society organizations, the private sector, professional and academic bodies and researchers, giving them ample opportunity to participate and express their opinions.”

On this issue, Insulza said that in the visits carried out by the Mechanism, more than 180 civil society representatives from the respective countries have taken part. “With good reason, in an analysis done by the ‘U4 Center of Anti-Corruption Resources’ it was written that the MESICIC is the mechanism that ‘contains the strongest formal requisites on the participation of civil society,’” he said.

Finally Insulza underlined that all nations and, in the case of the OAS, its member states, “have a very important role to play, given the transnational nature of corruption, by providing the broadest reciprocal assistance for the prosecution of the corrupt, their extradition to the country where they committed corrupt acts, doing everything necessary to recover stolen public assets, as provided for in our Convention and as our MESICIC has repeatedly stressed.”