Transparency

“Transparency is a broad term that, quite literally, means something that can be seen through. When we talk about transparency in terms of government spending, we are referring to government opening its books to the public so that taxpayers can see exactly where their money is going. Transparency ensures that your taxpayer moneys are spent efficiently by making all decisions in the open and on the record. Transparency means that citizens can review and question policymakers’ decisions, examine documents, root out inefficiencies and hold officials accountable for the way tax moneys are spent.”

Excerpt from the transparency section web site of Texas Government, EEUU.

In most of our Latin American countries, the concept “transparency” more than a wish is a utopia. Our societies seem not to be prepared to face this problem, arguing that they have a lot of problems to solve first such as poverty, lack of infrastructure, etc. But these reasons seem to be excuses, because transparency has not necessarily to be related to the development of a country. In fact, Transparency is an important tool to underdevelopment countries because everybody has the access to know about the use of public resources. The more access we have to that kind of information, the better tools we have to demand our rights. Transparency is as necessary in economy as in political stuff. Our democracies are very young, and our economy needs are always bigger than our resources. Political corruption undermines public trust in the democratic process. The integrity of the political system is fundamental to the rule of law and the ability of governments to safeguard the rights of its citizens.

Fortunately, there are two Latin American countries which have enacted a law of access to public information: Uruguay and Chile. Precisely, both countries have been classified among the countries with less corruption in the world by the NGO Transparency International.

In Chile, the new law has been well-received by almost all the people. The first thing that many people did (including myself) was to look for about the wage of important political figures and presidents of national companies, whose owner is the state of Chile, such as Codelco and Enap. But, beyond these kinds of typical attitudes of morbid curiosity of the people, the information is going to be very important to ensure the well use of public resources.

Nevertheless, all these tools are not going to avoid the corruption in Chile and other countries, because the corrupted people always are going to invent new ways to cheat. For this reason, the most important thing is to become honesty the main motto in our society through the system of education, advertisement campaigns against corruption in all levels from the schools to the enterprises as well as in our own families, talking about that problem with our children. It’s not an easy task but it is very important to make a better society.

Rdevia