Bolivia Corruption Perceptions Index 2004 score: 2.2 (122nd out of 146 countries) Conventions: OAS Inter-American Convention against Corruption (ratified February 1997) UN Convention against Corruption (signed December 2003; not yet ratified) UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (signed December 2000; not yet ratified) Legal and institutional changes • A presidential anti-corruption delegation (DPA) was created in October 2003, replacing the secretariat for the fight against corruption and for special policies, which was created in August 2002 under the auspices of the vice-president’s office. The DPA’s main task is ensuring compliance with the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, and coordinating anti-corruption efforts of the judiciary, the auditor general, the public prosecutor and the bank regulator. The delegation has drafted a wide-ranging action plan for 2004–07 focused on promoting public ethics; establishing monitoring mechanisms for corruption-prone bodies and processes; and supporting and strengthening authorities with powers to investigate and penalise corruption. Since starting, it has released a number of bulletins and reports, including analyses of specific corruption cases, and has established mobile anti-corruption brigades for rural municipalities as well as civic anti-corruption networks. The delegation also receives complaints related to corruption. Its effectiveness is limited, however, by its lack of investigative and prosecutorial powers. Another problem is that it was created by presidential decree and therefore has weak legal status, and as part of the executive has no legal authority over the judiciary or the legislature. It has also been criticised for its lack of independence, since it is part of the central government. Its success at a regional level has been mixed: in the state of Cochabamba, for example, in April 2004 the DPA delegate was allegedly given no support or office space by the head of the department, and eventually resigned. • In the absence of a law on access to information, new rules were issued by presidential decree in February 2004 requiring public officials to give public access to information that is not of a confidential nature. The DPA is studying ways to implement the decree across government departments. A more extensive access to information bill has been drafted, but is unlikely to be discussed by the legislature in 2004. • Congress agreed in March 2004 on the order in which a bicameral constitutional commission would investigate a series of high-profile cases involving corruption. They include allegations against former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada as well as the Kieffer case (see below). Each legislative chamber has a separate ethics commission that can also look into corruption allegations, but political in-fighting has limited the effectiveness of these commissions. One advance was the modification in March 2004 of procedures for dealing with cases; the ethics commissions of both chambers can now take on cases directly, without the prior approval of the president of the respective chamber. • At the time of writing, congressional commissions were drafting bills on the criminalisation of illegal enrichment, whistleblower protection and the creation of a general anticorruption prosecutor. Fighting between political parties was likely to delay these legislative processes beyond 2004.
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