Many Colombian State entities are insufficiently protected against corruption and “show poor compliance with ethical standards,” a study showed on Wednesday.
The study, conducted by NGO Transparency for Colombia (TFC) and funded by the embassies of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, showed that Colombia’s Congress, the National Registry, the national energy watchdog and five public universities are the most vulnerable to corruption.
The NGO investigated 158 State entities and concluded that 69.5 percent of these are at medium risk of corruption. Only four of the researched entities are at low risk.
State entities that showed the best protection against corruption were Colombia’s Central Bank, the national telecom watchdog and the Ministry of Education.
TFC is mostly concerned about the risk for corruption in entities like the Attorney General, the National Comptroller and the Ombudsman, institutions that are supposed to maintain checks on government institutions.
The study concludes that the majority of State entities “show poor compliance with ethical standards and in the development of codes of conduct and good government that seek to promote transparency as well as the implementation of guidelines that ensure a responsible and transparent workflow.”
The National Transparency Index, as the study is called, is “a tool
that measures the existence of institutional conditions that promote
transparency and control risks of corruption,” TFC director Marcela Restrepo explained to the newspaper El Espectador.