A new international study puts Ecuador once again on the worrying ladder due to its poor results in the fight against corruption, which has unfortunately become endemic.

According to the 2023 Anti-Corruption Capacity Index (CCC), conducted by risk consultancy firm Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) and Control Risks, Ecuador is ranked 10th out of 15 countries in the region. In most variables, such as the legal capacity to fight the problem (the independence of state institutions in the fight against corruption and the effectiveness of the judicial system in trying those responsible for corruption acts and reports), the biggest delays are there.

Added to this is stagnation in the work of institutions that have an anti-corruption memorandum, poor access to available public information and few resources available to the State Attorney’s Office for its investigations.

That Cosepe’s declaration does not remain in the discourse but that there are clear strategies: analysts talk about the fight against corruption announced by the regime of Guillermo Lasso

Impunity thrives

On May 3 last year, the current government established the Secretariat for Public Policy to Fight Corruption and appointed Luis Verdesot as its representative. He previously presented the national strategy for the fight against corruption. A little more than a year later, this entity has a new head with Ana Belén Cordero, who said that she will continue to implement “self-diagnosis methodologies and institutional corruption risk mapping” in three public companies, will teach public integrity courses and will create a channel for anonymous complaints about corruption.

But it still needs a lot of work and commitment. Citizens demand that public policies to fight corruption be more effective and, above all, that there is integrity in the management of state resources, especially in public procurement processes, because the lack of transparency and prevention leads back to corruption and poor services for the population; and corruption is linked to violence. (OR)