A survey of nearly 700 government services and departments has revealed that in most cases measures that were designed to prevent corruption have not been adopted.
The excuse given has been ‘a lack of resources.’ The conclusion of the survey of 643 organisations in the public sector, including municipalities, public institutions, and regional and national directorates representing a total of about 400,000 civil servants, is that there is a lack of staff to deal with anti-corruption measures, although such measures are of course a good idea.
The questionnaire was drawn up by the Board for the Prevention of Corruption (CPC) which works with the Court of Auditors and has been brave enough to release its findings which show it has failed in its objectives on all counts.
The depressing results showed that more than half of the public bodies surveyed (54.3%) reported that that the anti-corruption measures developed to quell their staff and managers taking advantage of their positions have only partly been executed or have not been started.
The lack of staff with specific expertise in corruption prevention, plus a lack of staff generally were the top excuses, followed by a lack of finance with which to buy in computer equipment, to pay for other control systems, and to pay for staff training.
In 2009, the CPC called on all bodies managing public money to draw up anti-corruption plans. This they did and then seemed to have ignored them.
The results show that the government really is not interested in cauterising this cancer which soaks up taxpayers’ money and promotes inefficiencies in service delivery.
In the report, ‘Preventing corruption in the public sector - five years of experience’ which was presented today, the CPC reveals the depressing results which show that public body managements recognise the value of the anti-corruption plans and their potential to improve the quality of public service, but 47% reported that they have had problems in carrying out the agreed measures.
Only half of these public bodies have internal audit or supervisory functions and they do see the need for specially trained staff, but have not been able or willing to employ or redeploy them due to budgetary constraints.
In most cases, the adoption of an anti-corruption mindset allegedly has been agreed by managers and supervisors but the CPC says this is not enough, "Promoting a culture of prevention of corruption risks should go beyond supervisors and managers and should be extended to all workers," the report concludes.
The recent Golden Visa corruption case showed many of Portugal’s higher ranking civil servants keen to fulfill their own financial needs as soon as the opportunity arose.
Eleven arrests later the scheme was plunged into discredit and the visa numbers have failed to come close to the early burst of activity where money was changing hands to fast-track certain high-yielding applications.
Just six visas were issued in May 2015 compared with 54 in April, a far cry from the flood of visas authorised mostly to Chinese applicants in the latter part of 2014. The fall has been so dramatic than even the publicity-hungry deputy PM Paulo Portas has stopped crowing about his wonderful success.
This is but one example from a public sector which has failed to shed its culture of favouritism and corruption despite some protestations to the contrary.
