ECUADOR TO RECEIVE ON-SITE VISIT OF THE OAS ANTI-CORRUPTION MECHANISM

On October 1 to 3, 2013, representatives from Chile and Venezuela, with the support of the Department of Legal Cooperation of the OAS General Secretariat, in its role as the Technical Secretariat of the Follow-Up Mechanism to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC), will meet with Ecuador’s principal oversight bodies that combat corruption: the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Oversight (Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social), the Office of the Attorney General (Fiscalía General del Estado), the Judicial Branch and Judicial Council (Consejo de la Judicatura), and the Comptroller General’s Office (Contraloría General del Estado).

The on site visit to Ecuador will take place in Quito, and will be carried out in accordance with the Methodology for Conducting On-Site Visits, as adopted by its member states. This will provide first hand, objective and complete information for its national report, which will be considered and adopted by the Committee of Experts of the MESICIC in a plenary meeting in March 2014.

As part of this process, the Commission will also meet with Ecuadorean civil society, as well as with the private sector, professional associations and academics, in order to address the topics that are currently being reviewed in the Fourth Round of this Mechanism.

In addition to the review of the oversight bodies, the Commission will collect information regarding the status of the implementation of the recommendations that the Committee formulated to Ecuador during the first round of review.

The MESICIC is a cooperation mechanism between States, with the participation of civil society organizations, established within the framework of the OAS, in which the legal/institutional framework of each country is reviewed for suitability with the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, as well as the objective results achieved therein. The incorporation of on-site visits as a stage and integral part of the MESICIC represents an innovative and pioneering initiative of the OAS, which, with the support of the Technical Secretariat, has further strengthened this review process.

For more information, please visit the Anticorruption Portal of the Americas.