He urges a Guerrilla war against corruption

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Riodoce article

Subject Matter: Corruption in Sinaloa
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Mirian Ramirez
In Mexico and Sinaloa one cannot wait any more, citizens have to initiate a Guerrilla war against corruption, emphasized Luis Manuel Perez de Acha, member of the Committee of Citizen Participation of the National System for Anti corruption.

The traditional structure of waiting for the authorities to resolve conflicts is today obsolete, before this crisis of corruption the citizens have to take control and demand that crimes be punished, said the professor during the first anti-corruption forum that took place in Sinaloa and was organized by the Coparmex business centre.

In an interview, Perez de Acha criticized the fact that the Government of Sinaloa is not aggressively pursuing the acts of corruption committed during the term of Mario Lopez Valdez, and lamented that for example, there is evidence of embezzlement in health and that this crime has not yet been punished.




"We cannot be obsessive with crimes, corruption has to be pursued and that is why both Governor Quirino, the Secretary for Finance, the State Auditor, and the Attorney General are responsible for prosecuting these crimes and also responsible for the fact that they are not being pursued", he criticized.

However, he emphasized that before this obvious omission, society cannot turn the page and forget a sexenio plagued by acts of corruption. The citizenry can go before the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic and denounce the acts of corruption that have been committed in his Government.

"As  a Society, we cannot stand with crossed arms, we have built a paradigm that is if the Government does nothing, we cannot do anything, I think what the citizens can do is to start filing criminal charges, we have to do research on the evidence, to present the denunciations . to have those complaints filed at the Federal level and to make sure they are criminal complaints, but we are going to be giving many returns on the subject", he emphasized.

In his presentation, to an audience made up mostly of businessmen and leaders of citizen organizations, Perez de Acha insisted on shielding the installation of the local anti-corruption system to prevent authority from simulating the process.

As detailed, the local anti-corruption system is built on two committees, one of them, the citizen participation committee will be composed of five citizens recognized for their work in favour of transparency and the fight against corruption.

To elect them, the Congress will appoint a Selection Committee composed of nine people, give academics and four from civil society, who will be in charge of choosing the five citizens of the Committee.

The key to everything is in the selection commission and in that we have to emphasize the congress so that the Commission is truly representative since from there it can initiate the simulation, if the congress covers up its interests through the selection committee, this cover up will be extended to the participation committee, whereby the system will be completely surrounded, captured and then will not work.

The profiles suitable for joining the participation committee should fulfill one essential characteristic, of not having commitments to the political class.

The participation committee will appoint a citizen president to chair the local committee, which will be composed of the state auditor, the anti-corruption prosecutor, the state controller, a representative of the supreme court of justice of the state, the president of the commission of state of access to information and representative of the administrative court of justice.

I think there are two lines for the profiles, one is that they are citizens who have shown an active participation in these issues and what they should not have is clearly political or economic ties and commitments with the political or ruling class.

In order for the system to operate and fulfill its objectives, the citizens committee will be the watchdog and in charge of guiding the fulfillment of the objectives, as well as liaising with civil society and academic organizations, while the local committee must evaluate public policies for combating corruption and to establish mechanisms for prevention and eradication.

As it has been pointed out, Perez de Acha agreed that Sinaloa is behind in the process of installing the local anti corruption system and before a deadline that expires next July, the time to comply with the federal mandate is insufficient.

As I understand from the data from the anti corruption semaphore, which are being carried out by IMCO and Coparmex, if there is a sufficient backlog, it is not in the best interests of the country, but it is not very far down, if we must urge that laws be approved. Governor Quirino must be urged to present the legislation for the system, as commented here in this forum, the will of the authorities will not be gratuitous or fortuitous, it has to pressure society.

Original article in Spanish at Riodoce