Secret Anti-Corruption Force Created in Venezuela
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has created a secret force to tackle corruption in public administration.
Mérida, 6th December 2014 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has created a secret force to tackle corruption in public administration.
Corruption has long been a problem in the South American OPEC nation, something which former interior affairs minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres once said had evolved into a “culture” in public administration early in the Venezuela’s history.
In the recently released 2014 Transparency International report, which measures perceptions of public sector corruption around the globe, Venezuela again placed in the top twenty most corrupt countries studied, as in previous years.
The Maduro administration has made reducing corruption one of its key priorities, and last month strengthened and widened the Law Against Corruption.
The new National Anti-Corruption Body will recruit officials whose identity will remain secret. Its mission is to “plan, organise and execute the necessary preventative, investigative and operative actions against corruption”.
The organisation is authorised to verify the transparency of the conduct of civil servants and third parties that they deal with.
It should also identify and prevent the penetration of funds originating from criminal activity entering the flows of public and private financial institutions.
The National Anti-Corruption Body will have a superintendent, an intendent, and a national anti-corruption police force. The police force’s director will be commissary José Ramírez Márquez (pictured).
When the plan to set up the organisation was first announced by President Maduro last month, he called on officials to “create a more transparent, more humane society,” adding, “with corruption, socialism isn’t possible”.
