President Admits Corruption Has Tarnished Government

[Judi Lynn]

President Admits Corruption Has Tarnished Government
By Ángel Páez

LIMA, Jul 29, 2010 (IPS) - In his Independence Day speech in the Peruvian Congress, which was broadcast nationwide, President Alan García admitted that corruption has tarnished his administration, although he lectured the judicial branch for delays in punishing those responsible.

The president, who is entering his fifth and last year in office, mentioned influence peddling in favour of foreign companies seeking oil contracts that was discovered when illegal recordings of wiretapped conversations were aired on television, as well as cases of illegal distribution of land to members of the governing Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP).

Former prime minister Jorge del Castillo, who was also secretary general of the PAP, was implicated in the wiretapping scandal and resigned together with his entire cabinet in 2008. The improper sale of land, meanwhile, led to the resignation in April this year of PAP deputy secretary general Omar Quesada, who was head of COFOPRI, the state agency issuing land titles.

Both men were sacked from their leadership positions in the PAP.

In Wednesday's speech García, in office since 2006, acknowledged that corruption is the main concern of Peruvians, and as he has regularly done throughout his presidency, reasserted his determination to eradicate corrupt practices in the state apparatus. But he failed to announce any concrete measures.

"You can have 1,000 honest, capable employees, but if five or 10 become corrupt, the whole system is tarred with the same brush," he complained.

He lay the blame on others for the continued impunity enjoyed by offenders. "I urge the judicial branch to speed up the examination of evidence, and expedite resolutions and sentencing, as Peru cannot wait so long for offenders to be punished, because it harms democracy," García said.

"We were hoping to hear more about concrete measures against corruption for the last year of his government, in the form of frontal attacks on a scourge that has plagued his administration and even brought down an entire cabinet. Instead, he gave a disappointing political speech," opposition lawmaker Renzo Reggiardo, chair of the parliamentary Audit Commission, told IPS.

In 2007, Reggiardo discovered that government officials were personally profiting from the humanitarian aid sent to victims of the earthquake that devastated the area around Pisco in August that year.

More:
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[rabs]

1. This precisely is why Keiko Fujimori

is the leader in very early public opinion polls for the presidential election next spring. (She had 22 percent support last month, leading several other candidates.)

A Peruvian friend a few months told me Peruvians were fed up with the massive, government corruption and explosion of crime under Garcia.

Many hanker for a return to the tough law-and-order regime (albeit often critized) during her father's time in office.