Rob HorganCORRUPTION in Spain remains ‘unchanged’ despite recent high profile scandals involving senior politicians, bankers and even King Felipe’s sister.
Spain is ranked 37th out of 175 countries looked at in the International Transparency department’s 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index.
The director of the global anti-corruption group, Alejandro Salas, said he is not surprised by the figures and corruption in Spain is ‘nothing new’.
He said: “When the economy was going well, it was ignored, people lived with it as if it was something that didn’t bother them.
“Corruption is structural and systematic in Spain. It doesn’t belong to one party, a government or a province. It is part of the fabric of different levels of society.”
Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, recently announced new anti-corruption measures to tackle the country’s corruption problems.
The International Transparency survey is made up from information from the World Bank, African Development Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit and other international bodies.
Alejandro Salas has hit the nail on the head with his assessment of corruption in Spain, which, depressingly, is endemic in Spanish society.
If Spain is serious about eradicating corruption, they need to set up an independent body of non-Spanish, non-politically affiliated professionals from abroad to monitor and track all government funds. These people would provide complete transparency, check bank accounts, keep records, track and report every penny spent and make sure that all monies – like the EU millions sent to Andalucia to help the unemployed – are used for that purpose. All figures should be published regularly.
Yes, it would cost money to set the system up but nothing compared to the savings that would be made.
Good post Jane, it would be great, but I suspect Rajoy and his Government would all oppose it seeing as they should also face charges for corruption, and yes if it happened, the savings would be enormous.
Go home then Fred. Simple.
Derek, going back to my place of birth is irrelevant to this issue. It is better to debate the issue and hopefully bring about change, rather than be in denial like yourself. You may be happy to live amongst corruption, others are not.
Jane … you may as well suggest they put Spain on Mars for safe-keeping. That’s about as realistic!!
to bring the corruption in spain to an end it will be like asking for an miracle it will never happen the political system in spain has been and always will be corrupted from top to bottom
“International Corruption Day”. Might as well turn it into a new fiesta and celebrate it. For sure it ain’t going away.
Even when a fresh party wants to challenge the status-quo (Podemus) everyone squeals like a stuck pig and gets the horrors about “Communism”.
Fancy a laugh??….Have a butchers at their new transperencia.gob.es website.
The new ‘transparency website’ tells me that my privacy settings are not correct and crashes lol. An older cached copy looks like a child created it. Dreadful effort.
I doubt that there is less corruption in UK, it’s just that the general public is not aware of it yet.
Councillors and Politicians in the UK are as bad if not worse but they have learnt a super trick. If you get caught fiddling a measly third of a million quid you apologise quickly saying it was a slip up and hey presto you are off the hook. There was one person where I live that was getting sickness benefit wrongly, when caught he said sorry and he had forgotten he had a job !!! (At the council), and another one off the hook.