At the national level, 12 state anti-corruption systems run the risk of becoming ensnared in the future by presenting gaps in the appointments of their committees or executive commissions.
Monitoring data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Anticorruption System (SNA) warns that until last December 3, entities such as Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Colima, Guerrero, Morelos, Nuevo León, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Sinaloa, Sonora and Veracruz, (37% of the states) do not have their selection commissions, whose task is to appoint the members of the local Citizen Participation Committee. The latter chair the Coordinating Committee of state anti-corruption systems.
Meanwhile, the states of Baja California and Nuevo León are the ones of greatest concern, since they present important lags, since in addition to not having a selection commission, their participation committees are incomplete.
In Nuevo León, it only has one member of the CPC and it does not have an Executive Commission, that is, the entity in charge of generating the technical inputs necessary for the Coordinating Committee to carry out its functions. While Baja California only has four members of its CPC and the ownership of the Executive Commission is in dispute.
Ricardo Salgado Perrilliat, Technical Secretary of the Executive Secretariat of the National Anticorruption System (SNA), warned that vacancies in these entities are a serious problem, since the time will come when local systems will be trapped.
“The problem that we now find ourselves with is in the selection commissions, with 12 entities that have not been able to build their CPCs because they do not have a Selection Commission and that the truth is a bit serious,” he said.
And it is that the lawyer also detailed that, although the members of the Citizen Participation Committee of at least 10 entities continue to work with the members who may remain, over time their positions will end and therefore there will be vacancies that cannot be fill, leaving systems in trouble.
Steps to follow
“(Appointing the selection commissions) is what must now be transcendental to continue with the system and that they do not get bogged down. These 12 states at some point are going to have problems when they no longer have an executive secretariat, since they no longer have the arm of the citizen participation committee to issue instruments, including the implementation program or the corruption evaluation model, “he said.
Despite these shortcomings, the Technical Secretary also asserted that at the national level, all entities have formally established their local anti-corruption systems, “with everything and the vicissitudes that the Secretary of Mexico City may have, which had to be reborn after that the SCJN determined unconstitutional changes to its laws ”.
In this context, the data also indicates that there are about 14 reform initiatives to the legal frameworks of the states that have to do with local anti-corruption systems.
In Nuevo León, an initiative was presented that proposes the appointment of seven alternate members in the citizen group to accompany the Selection Commission, who would be in office for two years. In addition to a rule, which is already discussed in commissions, so that any citizen can request the removal of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.
Meanwhile, in the CDMX a project was presented that proposes modifying the General Law of Administrative Responsibilities, so that only officials at the department head level or higher must present their declaration of assets and interests. While another norm seeks to establish a procedure for the appointment processes of the Internal Control Bodies of the autonomous entities.
In Baja California, the aim is to reduce the members of the CPC from 15 to 7 and include representatives of the solicitor trustees in the processes.
On the other hand, in Guerrero, Puebla and Hidalgo, they seek to legislate so that municipal anti-corruption systems are implemented; in Sonora, they are already analyzing that municipalities should issue municipal anti-corruption regulations.
maritza.perez@eleconomista.mx