Tegucigalpa.
The natural phenomenon and corrupt institutions dealt “severe blows” to Honduras, a country that has fallen from 26 to 24 points out of 100 in the 2020 Corruption Perception Index, the lowest score in eight years, according to a report presented this Thursday in Tegucigalpa.
“It is clear that the forces of nature and corrupt institutions have dealt hard blows to Honduras. The implications for transparency were reflected in the 2020 Corruption Perception Index score of 24, a record low since 2012,” said the report. Association for a fairer society (ASJ), local chapter of International transparency (TI).
It emphasizes that the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic was the first external force to “marginalize the public and economic health of Hondurans.”
“The intersecting economic and health crises have also exacerbated poverty by disrupting employment, health and education,” he emphasizes.
In addition to the pandemic, Honduras suffered “the worst” natural disasters of the century in 2020, the tropical storms Eta and Jota, which hit the country in November, killing 94, affecting 4 million people and destroying all kinds of infrastructure and agricultural crops, he adds.
“Rather than bolstering Honduras’ ability to recover from these disasters, the political and economic elites rejected the rule of law, thereby reducing the Hondurans prosperous’, the research indicates.
Corruption will undermine the recovery
He assures that the “weakness of the institutions has contributed to the lack of preparedness to cope with disasters, to which is added the alarming lack of planning in the purchase of covid-19 supplies, excessive prices for sanitary equipment and opaque agreements in the purchase of the seven mobile hospitals, of which only one is in use. “
Over the past decade, Honduras has suffered “millionaire losses and major setbacks” in the fight against corruption and impunity, and in order to face the recovery it is “essential” that the fight against corruption “does not lag behind,” he adds.
It emphasizes the importance of “strengthening the internal audit processes of public institutions, with independence and capacity, and ensuring compliance with public procurement law, certification of public purchasers and the investigation of corruption.”
Honduras still lacks a strategy against Covid-19 and this lack of clarity “ puts citizens at risk and the recovery of about $ 1 billion in economic losses from the pandemic“, Add.
“Corruption will inevitably undermine the recovery by diverting much-needed resources from those who need them into the pockets of the corrupt,” the TI paper further notes that it is essential that leaders “with a transparency ensures that these funds reach the communities that need it most. “
The Executive Director of the ASJ, Honduran branch of TI, Carlos Hernandez, said it is “urgent” that Honduran officials adhere to the State treaty law, “to be able to conduct transparent, efficient procurement and contracting processes that help reduce corruption.”
“No impunity is another element, the corrupt should be punished and it is important that the prosecution conduct its investigations diligently and punish them within the framework of what the law provides,” he stressed.
He stressed that “no less important is the mobilization of citizens. Silence makes us complicit, we must report every act of corruption, we must organize, we must mobilize. We cannot continue to tolerate corruption, because corruption kills.”
Shady anti-corruption efforts
“The state of anti-corruption efforts is equally bleak” in the Central American country, which faced “major setbacks” in the fight against impunity with the end of the Mission in support of Honduras against corruption and impunity (MACCIH), which depended on the Organization of American States (OAS), the report adds.
Since his “untimely” disappearance, the Honduran courts have “further undermined the authority of the Attorney General’s Office to investigate corruption, and the charges in several cases of the MACCIH“.
Honduran parliamentarians, some under investigation for corruption, have also passed a new criminal code that will reduce punishments for this plague and drug trafficking in Honduras, where “allegations of drug trafficking still exist against public leaders, including the current president,” Juan Orlando Hernández) codifying impunity is very worrying, ”the report said.