Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Corruption Perceptions Index 2008: 2.5 (134th out of 180 countries) Conventions OAS Inter-American Convention against Corruption (signed March 1996; ratified March 1999) UN Convention against Corruption (signed December 2003; ratified February 2006) UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (signed December 2000; ratified September 2002)
Legal and institutional changes ● The law of municipal procurements was enacted in September 2007,1 granting municipalities autonomy in acquisition procedures and giving them the freedom to decide whether to offer a tender for the purchase of goods and services. The law does not apply to acquisitions financed with foreign cooperation. Procurement between municipalities or with state institutions is also excluded from the new legislation, falling instead under the state procurement law. Under the new law, public employees who receive benefits from a bidder, or who provide information that gives one bidder an advantage over competitors, can be found to have committed a serious offence, resulting in an investigation by the comptroller’s office. Smaller infractions, such as failure to keep orderly records or improperly filing procurement documents, are considered minor offences punishable by the loss of fifteen days’ salary.2
● Law 621, regarding access to public information, came into force in December 2007. The law guarantees the public’s right to access information contained in state documents, databases and files. It also obliges institutions that administer or receive state funds in addition to private financing, including private companies and some civil society organisations, to make their documents publicly available. The new law represents the first successful access to information initiative in Nicaragua, and reflects the culmination of four years of legislative debate and judicial evaluation. A recent study of compliance with the law demonstrates that, of ten written requests for information sent to various public institutions, four received no response, two were refused, one response did not correspond to the information requested, and only three were answered correctly and in a timely manner.3 Though limited in scope, the study suggests that public officials continue to use high levels of discretion
1 Law 622, ‘Ley de Contrataciones Municipales’. 2 La Prensa (Nicaragua), 16 October 2007. 3 Only the National Assembly and the Ministry of Education provided the requested information in a timely fashion. Requests for access to information sent to the Ministry of Government and the Nicaraguan army were refused, while requests to the Council for Communication and Citizenship and the Ministry of Foreign Relations both went unanswered. The Nicaraguan Electric Company failed to answer a first request, and sent a response that did not correspond to the information petitioned in a second request. For further survey details, see www.violetachamorro.org.ni.
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