OAS anticorruption forces focus on Honduras.
| Autor | Rodriguez, George |
The anticorruption forces of the Organization of American States (OAS) are zeroing in on Honduras, a country with a lengthy and negative record in this field.
As the newly created Support Mission against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Mision de Apoyo contra la Corrupcion y la Impunidad en Honduras, MACCIH) was gearing up to start its four-year job in Tegucigalpa, the nation's capital, the Mechanism for Follow-up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (Mecanismo de Seguimiento de la Implementacion de la Convencion Interamericana contra la Corrupcion, MESICIC) was starting a four-day visit (NotiCen, Nov. 12, 2015, and Feb. 18, 2016).
MESICIC, a continental inter-governmental body that includes civil society participation, was set up in 2002 to aid OAS member states in implementing the convention, which dates back to 1996. Honduras has been a party to the anti-corruption convention since June 1998.
The mechanism's evaluation of how effectively, or not, the convention is implemented is carried out in visits to countries, after which reports are issued that contain recommendations so that each country knows what its flaws are in order to correct them.
MACCIH, created through an agreement signed on January 19, 2016, by top OAS and Honduran officials, specifically deals with supporting, strengthening and cooperating with the institutions in Honduras responsible for preventing, investigating, and punishing local corruption.
The mission--which has to report every six months to OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro--must also present the Honduran government with proposals to improve the country's justice system and contribute to strengthening the system's accountability processes as well as the monitoring abilities of civil society.
Although they work independently, MESICIC and MACCIH are nevertheless linked because of their nature, and according to the agreement signed in January, MACCIH has to assist Honduran authorities in constructing an action plan to fulfill MESICIC's recommendations.
In its April 18-21 visit--the fifth to analyze Honduras since 2004--MESICIC focused mainly on three areas. One was the actual implementation of recommendations it had made in previous visits regarding issues such as criminalization of act of corruption, protection for whistleblowers, and the public systems for acquisition of goods and services. It also focused on the link between fair remuneration and public servants' probity...
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