The first regional meeting of the Anti-Corruption Alliance was held in Concepción, a working group that brings together representatives from various institutions in the country and whose objective is to promote integrity at a transversal level and generate tools that enhance probity within State services. .
In this context, the comptroller(s), Dorothy Pérez, raised her concern regarding the internal summaries in public services, following an official from the Seremi de Salud – present at the instance – expressed her question and feeling to the For example, many times a criminal investigation is carried out once morest a questioned official, but said public worker continues to receive a salary and is not removed from his or her duties.
“The issue of administrative summaries, and also summary investigations in our country, is a very delicate issue; In fact, I would classify it as serious,” said Comptroller(s) Pérez. “The level of delay that exists in the public administration, both central, municipal and regional – at all levels -, of the number of summaries that are pending for years and years still in process, with officials who are receiving their salaries, but suspended , and in their houses; with officials who do not have legal certainty of what the results will be – some of these people are innocent and are being summed up and being stigmatized for years -… There is a multiplicity of problems that occur in the matter.
Regarding what the Comptroller’s Office can do in these cases, Pérez indicated that the institution he represents is calling on public institutions to “focus on the investigation of the administrative summaries on the specific facts that they were ordered to summarize.”
The above was based on the fact that the files that present the reasons for a summary often cover too many aspects, an issue that, in the opinion of the comptroller(s), makes the respective investigation difficult because it is increasingly expanding. “We have to focus on the specific facts that gave rise to that investigation. Then, for the different facts that the Prosecutor detects, he will have to report them.”
New whistleblower protection statute
One of the points that was detailed as a novelty in the presentations was what was stated by the comptroller(s) Dorothy Pérez, in relation to the new whistleblower protection statute (Law No. 21, 592). In Pérez’s words, this modification to the regulations aims to encourage active reporting by public officials following having become aware of a possible case of corruption. And, in detail, the bulk of this initiative is to protect the whistleblower: that is, to prevent retaliation once morest those who report.
“This new law will come into effect once the Comptroller’s Office takes cognizance of the regulations that are currently being processed by the Comptroller’s Office,” said the comptroller(s). However, she also noted that there is a problem: “The problem is that this new statute requires a reporting channel. (…) The problem is that this reporting channel, as established in this new law, has many demands that are not met in this online reporting channel that we have in the Comptroller’s Office. So we have to make a new platform.”
And that is one of the challenges of the Comptroller’s Office to generate this new channel, according to the new regulations, which requires elements such ase the identity of the complainant cannot be known -so that it can only be extracted in certain cases-, so that a file can be formed with the various presentations that people -not just the complainant- can make-, resources are required that, According to Comptroller(s) Pérez, “they didn’t give us resources for that.”
However, he added that “this is still being studied, the IT team I don’t know how they are going to do it, but they are at full speed trying to adjust this new platform. (…) So, the teams are working to be able to have this platform as soon as possible and they are also making some legal revisions to the regulations so that the law comes into force.”
And what will happen when this new law comes into effect? According to what was stated by the deputy comptroller, complaints will surely increase, because the new regulations bring incentives for public officials who report, such as, for example, if the irregularity that is being reported is proven, “the person who made the complaint will have the possibility of moving up in their official ranks and being in the first places to be promoted.”
Text: Sebastián Rojas
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