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OAS Secretary General: “Corruption Is Fought with Transparency, Closeness to People, Dialogue and Severe Punishment”

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, recalled during the closing session of the Conference on the Progress and Challenges in Hemispheric Cooperation against Corruption held June 3-4 in Lima that the issue of corruption “is linked to government transparency as an important factor for democracies and an essential element in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

At the event, organized in the framework of the activities before the 40th OAS General Assembly, Secretary General Insulza highlighted the role that government stakeholders and national and international civil society organizations play, as well as “the role of the media organizations at the disposal of the general public and the growing awareness of public opinion that corruption harms society, its economy and politics, and that therefore corruption must be denounced. These are matters in which there is no doubt that we have made substantial progress in recent years.”

The Secretary General also referred to the progress achieved on the fight against corruption, though he recognized that “it takes time for people to perceive the many achievements reached,” and added that “this progress has been achieved thanks to the most selfless officials that each country has put forward to follow up on the Inter-American Convention against Corruption and to the effort of civil society organizations, without which many of these things would not be possible.”

Summarizing the various issues debated during the two-day conference, Secretary General Insulza asserted that the way to fight corruption is “transparency, closeness to people, dialogue, and severe punishment.” He also spoke of the need to improve sanctions with respect to corruption and to “understand that corruption has two sides, the one that receives and the one that corrupts, and that both should be equally punished.”

The Attorney General of Peru, Gladys Echaiz Ramos, also was present at the closing ceremony and referred to the scourge of corruption as “a germ that erodes the foundations of society,” adding that “if we wish to strengthen our Rule of Law we must work with mechanisms of transparency such as those promoted by the OAS.”

The Conference on the Progress and Challenges in Hemispheric Cooperation against Corruption, organized by the OAS Department of Legal Cooperation, marks a crucial stage in the cooperation program to support the Member States in the implementation of the recommendations formulated by the Follow-Up Mechanism to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, known as MESICIC.

A photo gallery of this event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org

Reference: E-218/10