2024-09-02 21:44:17
The largest amount reported corresponds to the municipality of Viña del Mar under the period of Mayor Virginia Reginato (between 2004 and 2021), corresponding to $100 billion.
The various cases of corruption reported in various municipalities and investigated by the courts have dominated the headlines of the press throughout the year, according to the second Municipal Corruption Observatory.
“The results warn of a dramatic increase in reports and publications about acts of corruption in municipalities during the first months of 2024. The total amounts reported by the press for the entire period analyzed are obscene: they are equivalent to 9 Telethons, 11.3 plans against organized crime or the construction of 71 Cesfam”says Claudia Miralles, manager of Imaginaccion Strategic Communication.
One of the main conclusions of the second installment of the Press Observatory on Municipal Corruption was the notable increase in this type of cases in the first half of 2024 compared to previous years, bringing to 67 the number of municipalities in the country where there are signs of misuse of public resources and doubling the total amount involved, which rose to $431 billion pesos.
According to Claudia Miralles, “it is urgent to provide municipalities with greater control and oversight capacity, as well as to strengthen the Comptroller’s Office for external supervision of the use of resources. The alerts raised by the press must be taken into account in the upcoming October election, since the best way to ensure the proper use of resources is through citizen control.”
According to the Observatory’s news report, the emergence of information between January and July of corruption cases in the municipalities of Viña del Mar, Coquimbo and Santiago doubled the figure for misuse of municipal resources that existed until December 2023.
The largest amount reported corresponds to the municipality of Viña del Mar under the period
of Mayor Virginia Reginato (between 2004 and 2021), corresponding to $100 billion.
The largest number of publications throughout the period was concentrated around allegations of corruption against the former mayor of Vitacura, Raúl Torrealba (172), the former mayor of Maipú, Kathy Barriga (124), with former mayor Daniel Jadue in third place (121 publications).