¿Es posible acabar con la corrupción?

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I' m Roberto Pombo. Welcome
to my questions. An average rush program

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sponsored by KFAM, family compensation box. Corruption seems to be a chronic problem

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that cannot be eradicated. In just
two thousand twenty- two, corruption cost

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Colombia more than fifty billion pesos.
What can be done to end corruption we

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have normalized it, what is the
way it operates most for this chapter.

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We spoke with Andrés Hernández, Director
of Transparency for Colombia, with Mercedes Ceballos,

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expert in economic criminal investigation, with
Felipe Rey, professor of Constitutional Law

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at Javeriana University, with Paca Azuleta, director of the School of Government of

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Los Andes and with Senators David Duna
and Humberto de la Calle. I'

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m Roberto Pombo. And this is
chapter eighty- eight of my welcome questions.

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Over the years, it is inevitable
that one will begin to feel pains

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and to leave aside foods that he
could eat without any problems before. This

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happens especially with the digestive system.
It happened recently that I invited a group

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of close friends and family for a
Sunday lunch, and dietary restrictions did not

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include dairy, fermented foods, raw
foods, red or fibrous meats, raw

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fruits or vegetables, whole foods,
hotel coffee. Then the lunch had less

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different and in some cases they had
to have Dad' s broth. I

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was surprised and worried to see that
even young people or at least under 50

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years of age had so many gastric
problems and when I asked, it turns

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out that most have to do with
ulcers because of the bacterian son Pirori.

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If you are not known this name, you are a lucky and surely young

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person. Helicobacter Pillory is one of
the most common bacteria in the world.

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He lives in the digestive system and, according to experts, about two thirds

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of humanity has it. Your body
is the most common bacterial infection. This

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organism is responsible for 90% of
the gastric ulcers. But there is one

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detail that especially caught my attention,
and that is that, even though it

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is such a popular bacterium, in
reality the number of people who get sick

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due to this bacterium is quite small. If we compare it to the total

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number of individuals that harbor it in
their stomach Only between fifteen and twenty percent

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of the people who have the helicobacter
in their body trigger chronic gastritis, peptic

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ulcers or some type of gastric cancer. The prevalence of this bacterium is higher

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in developing countries, and eradicating it
at least the human body has become a

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challenge for medicine because over time it
has become resistant to different antibiotics and the

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organism has been able to adapt to
hostile environments. Now that I think about

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it, Helicobacter pyrori looks pretty much
like another old problem that is difficult to

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eradicate and has adapted to possible solutions. Corruption, especially in Colombia. Corruption

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has behaved like a bacterium that has
managed to mutate and become resistant to the

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majority of controls that would be antibiotics, and continues to threaten the country'

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s well- being. I am
thinking, for example, of a short

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list of corruption scandals and it is
so long that I would not have several

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chapters of this programme to talk about
them. He' d have to make

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an entire encyclopedia into a corrupt drug. It is so that we already have

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a glossary of our own like the
famous carrucials, that there are only several

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of those, the diapers, the
hiring, the hemophilia, among many others.

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We have so internalized the corruption that
it has become common among voters phrases

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as no matter what roo. The
important thing is to do something. This

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became notorious in June last year,
when the caas and from Córdoba, were

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filled to receive in the middle of
a carnival former senator Bernardoño Elias,

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after being released on parole for collaborating
with the justice system, after spending five

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years in prison for the crimes of
concert to commit crime and laundering of assets

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and having on top a conviction for
bribery and trafficking in influence. This particularly

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surprises us in a country where corruption
seems to be the norm in the political

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world and even in the private world. I know that comparison is not fair,

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but in the day- to-
day there are also acts of corruption,

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such as bribing a traffic agent so
that he does not fine or pay

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a manager to take out the passport
we have normalized corruption. He moves this

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question to Felipe Rey, professor of
Constitutional Law at Javeriana University, and this

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he replied. I don' t
think so. My general impression is that

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to see is not that there is
a normalization of the problem of corruption.

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I perceive the opposite, that is, I perceive a huge and growing social

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sensitivity to corruption problems and show them
what is happening. Let' s say,

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any corruption event and this may not
have happened before and it' s

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another effect of the debate on social
media also has a huge impact on public

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deliberation. I think there is a
major change too, and it is that,

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being a left- wing government,
well, the left is exposing itself

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and exposing itself to the problems of
corruption that it traditionally accused of on the

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right and left. As a Government, it faces challenges related to the fight

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against corruption, for example, in
the areas of nomination of office, which

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is the great responsibility of, for
example, a President of the Republic who

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does not mine to be in charge
of huge entities and budgets. The problem

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of corruption in Colombia must also lead
to an institutional discussion. This is an

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issue that, for example, is
valid when we talk about the proposal that

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I do not share, to eliminate
the Attorney General' s Office, that

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is, in a country with levels
of corruption such as Colombia should not only

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disappear. Entities responsible for this struggle
should not disappear; on the contrary,

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we should be thinking of an institutional
infrastructure to combat corruption. Despite the latest

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cases of corruption known in entities such
as the National Risk Management Unit and the

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hundreds of other cases, such as
that of populated centres, mayonetas or bres,

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the country has in fact improved slightly
in the rate of perception of corruption,

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made every year by international transparency.
This measurement is the most widely used

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corruption ranking in the world and qualifies
perceived levels of corruption in the public sector

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in each country. According to the
opinions of experts and entrepreneurs. In the

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measurement of two thousand twenty- three
presented this year, Colombia obtained forty points

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on the scale of one hundred in
the cheesemaker means highly corrupt and very clean

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sel. The country' s score
has been improved from two thousand eighteen,

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when it had thirty- six points. The position of the pass s s

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in the global ranking also improved and
rose to ninety- one to eighty-

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seven among the hundreds eighty countries evaluated. But that rise on the list is

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not necessarily because the country feels less
corrupt, but because some countries like Tanzania,

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Suriname, Guyana, with which we
share the score of thirty- nine

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out of a hundred in two thousand
twenty- one, maintained the same score

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last year. However, according to
transparency by Colombia, which is part of

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international transparency, it remains an unsatisfactory
outcome, because there are serious problems of

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corruption that still confront the country and
that undermine the fundamental rights of a large

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part of its inhabitants. And it' s not for less. In December

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of two thousand twenty- three,
María Anaime Varón, Auditor General of Colombia,

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told Cambio magazine that in two thousand
twenty- two corruption cost the country

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more than fifty billion pesos. To
size this, I tell you that this

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year' s nation' s general
budget is five hundred and two six billion.

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I mean, corruption doesn' t
take almost ten percent. According to

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the auditor, this figure ends up
being higher because it lacks to calculate the

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social cost involved. In other words, it is not calculated, for example,

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the cost that boys and girls have
not been properly fed due to the

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constant theft of school feeding plans.
A document published by the Bank of the

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Republic in two thousand twenty- two
found that the number of disciplinary sanctions against

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public servants registered between two thousand thirteen
and two thousand twenty had a peak between

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two thousand eleven and two thousand eighteen
ranging from one thousand two hundred and one

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thousand four hundred each year, but
in two thousand nineteen a fall began that

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remained at less than six hundred.
I want you to pay attention to this

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figure which I am going to give
you next. According to a document of

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the Secretariat of Transparency of the Presidency, between two thousand ten and two thousand

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twenty- three, fifty- seven
thousand five hundred eighty- two complaints of

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corruption were registered. This means almost
thirteen complaints of crimes against the civil service

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every day in the last thirteen years. Of these complaints, ninety- three

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comma nine per cent remain unconvicted,
eighty- nine comma seven per cent have

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not been resolved in court sentences that
establish one or a few culprits, and

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seventy- seven comma five per cent
are in the preliminary phase of a formal

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investigation or trial, so they have
not even begun to investigate. These numbers

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are scandalous because they speak of high
levels of impunity, that is, that

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justice is applied to cases of corruption- related crimes in a timid six percent.

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And this is not only worrying,
but it makes sense if you see

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that the number of corruption complaints has
decreased dramatically. While in two thousand sixteen

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there were five thousand four hundred and
forty- seven denunciations, the number went

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down until last year there were only
eight hundred and two. The same applies

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to convictions for corruption, which were
nine percent in two thousand thirteen and ten

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years later have gone down to less
than one percent last year. Justice has

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its own time, because a corruption
trial can take up to ten years to

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reach a sanction. It is well
known that in this country it gives justice

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is pachydermic that takes its time,
but what is the role of the justice

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system in the solution of corruption.
I looked for Paca Azuleta, director of

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the School of Government of the University
of the Andes to answer this question and

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this he told me. The role
of the justice system in the fight against

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corruption. It is the role of
the justice system in any fight against crime

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and crime. Corruption is a way
to call a group of crimes that do

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damage common goods, common goods and
services, damage trust in institutions through personal

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exploitation of issues that are collective.
Justice must investigate taxation and condemn acts of

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corruption by the judges of the Republic. Justice, too, or the judiciary,

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must have protocols, programmes, handbooks
to promote transparency and prevent and mitigate

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the risks of corruption. The very
functioning of the judicial branch, the prosecutor

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' s office and the judges of
Republic A. We already know that it

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is a serious problem, but that
we are so concerned about corruption. According

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to a poll conducted by Ibander in
December of two thousand twenty- three,

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for thirty- one percent of Colombians
surveyed, unemployment and the economy are their

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main concern. Concern for public order
and security ranks second among the biggest concerns,

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with twenty- four percent, and
third is corruption, with sixteen percent.

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On the other hand, in January
of this year, World' s

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global study of ipsoes What Worris showed
that corruption ranks third among the concerns of

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Colombians, with thirty- three percent, only behind unemployment with forty- one

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percent and violence with thirty- eight
percent. According to regular surveys by imbamer

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Paul, corruption is often the most
alarming problem for citizens. However, current

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legislation does not provide adequate safeguards for
whistleblowers of corruption or preventive measures against offences

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linked to such complaints. It is
not easy to denounce corruption in Colombia.

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It is enough to see the number
of social leaders and observers who are threatened

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and killed every year for daring to
denounce. The list is long, but

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there are fresh examples, such as
that of Jaime Vázquez de Cúcuta, who

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had revealed videos that left councillors of
that city unstoppable. In addition to cases

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and corruption related to the nationalization of
Venezuelan cars and that he was murdered a

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few months ago, or like the
case of Fabio González and Pablo Bolaños,

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investigators of the ste and in bonaventure, who warned that another official of that

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same institution collaborated with the mafia so
that for drugs and against the side and

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instead of paying attention to them,
they were transferred to distant cities and opened

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criminal proceedings for falsehood in public document. ECO DE and Transparency International have urged

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the country to implement a law that
protects those who denounce acts of corruption,

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guaranteeing them protection against reprisals of any
kind, whether physical, economic, social,

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or psychological. However, this remains
a pending task for Congress, which

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has not flowed easily to manage the
legislative agenda. Perhaps one of the saddest

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and most recent examples of whistleblowers of
corruption is that of the late Jorge Enrique

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Pisano, the auditor of the Ruta
al Sol Dos project, who died in

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November of two thousand nineteen in mysterious
circumstances. Among the authorities. They claim

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that his death was due to natural
causes. His family thinks he was murdered.

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This occurred after his allegations of embezzlement
of funds in the work. In

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November last year, the Government enacted
a bill with its name that seeks to

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protect whistleblowers from acts of corruption.
However, today it has not had its

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first debate in Congress and if it
is not approved in June, this project

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of leice ondig But this is not
the first attempt to protect whistleblowers from corruption.

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Already in two thousand nineteen, then
President Iván Duque led the bill Pedro

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Pascasio Martínez, which sought to protect
the whistleblowers. But a year later,

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the Deputy Minister of the Interior,
Daniel Palacio, asked the First Committee of

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the House of Representatives, to dismiss
the bill, for the more than eighty

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proposed amendments to the text and for
the request of the then prosecutor Francisco Barbosa,

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to examine the initiative in depth to
provide a more detailed opinion. According

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to the newspaper of the country,
the Director of Transparency for Colombia, Andrés

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Hernández Auro Comillas, the Congress has
not wanted to give a serious debate on

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this issue. The House of Representatives
has received bills and has not seen even

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the first debate. It is clear
that if I want to attack this corruption,

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I should protect whoever denounces it.
I' m closing Comillas. The

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document published by the Bank of the
Republic on corruption, which I mentioned earlier,

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also found that in the early decade
of two thousand ten there was a

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significant increase in the objective indicators of
corruption and concluded that this fact casts doubt

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on the effectiveness of the laws recently
implemented to combat corruption. I see all

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this, and I wonder if the
bills are enough to put an end to

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corruption. I asked this question to
the Director of Transparency for Colombia Andrés Hernández.

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Laws aren' t enough to end
corruption. In Colombia and in general,

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many anti- corruption norms have been
created in Latin America in recent decades,

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but these rules have two problems.
First, that many are left without

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sufficient implementation and, second, that
several laws leave cracks open through which corruption

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continues to slip. Nor have we
been able to assess without more rules helps

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to have less corruption or if perhaps
we are falling into an excess of regulation

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that could even favor new irregularities.
In spite of all this, it is

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important to reiterate that laws are necessary
to deal with corruption, because the rules

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allow us to have instruments to prevent
and attack this problem from legality and not

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from outside democratic frameworks. To think
that we can fight corruption outside the law

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carries the risk of manipulating the anti- corruption flag to favor authoritarian and anti

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- democratic actions. Beyond this,
we need more ambitious and effective strategies to

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confront corruption that combine robust laws and
effective implementation, as well as greater public

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leadership and commitment from non- state
actors, such as the business sector and

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society as a whole. To the
point of assuming that being corrupt is not

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normal, as if it were not
enough. We have to add a new

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element to the problem of corruption,
it is already drug trafficking, and it

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is that the war on drugs goes
through the country everywhere as a total wound

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and corruption is one of the ways
in which it manages to keep rubbing.

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Benjamin Lessing is an associate professor of
political science at the University of Chicago.

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The study of the criminal conflict,
that is, organized violence involving armed groups

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that do not seek the power of
formal state, such as drug cartels,

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prison gangs, paramilitary sites. He
is owed something known as Lessing' s

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trilemma, which says it is impossible
to attack drug trafficking, corruption and violence.

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At the same time. The explanation
is that if drug trafficking is repressed,

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the price of bribes goes up and
officials have more incentives to corrupt themselves,

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while fighting corruption. Drug traffickers can
resort to more violence to maintain their

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business. The mere figure of Pablo
Escobar in Congress, the murder of Luis

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Carlos Ganán or the same process eight
zero are examples of what solving corruption without

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first solving the drug problem is going
to be very difficult. In two thousand

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twenty- one, Transparency for Colombia
published the report Fight against corruption and Fight

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against drug trafficking in Colombia. He
found, through interviews that the institutions charged

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with dealing strategically with the fight against
drug trafficking. With the Ministry of Justice,

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the Ministry of Defence, the Transparency
Secretariat and the National Planning Department,

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they had not integrated the fight and
promotion of transparency and integrity into policies to

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combat drug trafficking, nor into concrete
and strategic actions of the entities working in

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the system. And he also found
that, in addition to attacking the drug

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trafficking production chain, it is also
necessary to promote actions in areas highly associated

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with corruption, such as money laundering. Violence and armed conflict have also been

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instrumental in keeping corruption rampant. And
just as it is said that making the

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law, making the trap, something
similar happens with technology and corruption. During

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a meeting of the World Bank'
s Global Alliance of Enemies of Corruption,

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it was stressed that the management of
digital documents is simplifying the embezzlement of funds,

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the perpetration of economic or property crimes, the usurpation of assets or the

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disappearance of evidence in investigations against fraud. I asked Mercedes Cevallos, a forensic

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auditor and expert in economic criminal investigation, what the role of anti- corruption

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technology is. This he told me. Technology plays a very important role in

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preventing public and private corruption. Today
we have technological tools that allow us to

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anticipate corrupt behaviors that can be committed
by natural or legal persons within a technological

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environment, almost like predicting some kind
of behavior at the level of information systems.

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It is now possible based on data
analytics, artificial intelligence and psychological profiling

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of individuals who are more likely to
commit corrupt behaviors. This information that gives

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us the technology from different technological understandings
and tools of criminal investigation, we can

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use them in the prevention of corruption. It is important that public and private

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companies are aware of these mechanisms and
include them in their mechanisms for preventing corruption.

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Perhaps one of the most common ways
in which this problem is maintained is

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in electoral politics, in its various
varieties, and is that there is a

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whole apparatus for the machinery of corruption
to move, although more like a pyramid.

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I am referring more precisely to the
purchase of votes, whether in exchange

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for silver or for posts and contracts. It requires politicians who know the functioning

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of the state, its bureaucracy and
the legal gaps in which they take refuge

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to contract around here, in exchange
for a thousand votes in the Communal Action

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Board or a contract of a secretariat
or ministry, in exchange for humorous people

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to vote. In short, the
techniques have been refined every time. The

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death of the late politician Mario Castaño
showed how this platform of political corruption works.

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The country newspaper reviews this case very
well. In June to two thousand

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twenty- three, Castaño was sentenced
to fifteen years and eleven months in prison,

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for concert to offend interest due to
conclusion of contracts speculated confusion Gestaffer,

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according to the Spanish medium Castaño,
was in charge of a complex system that

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manipulated the allocation of public contracts between
two thousand twenty and March of two thousand

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twenty- two. Research shows that
this politician had an influence on the delivery

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of state contracts worth forty- three
million pesos, approximately ten two million dollars,

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and he always received payments for improperly
doing so. It had control over

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different organizations such as the Department for
Social Prosperity of PS, the Ministries of

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Interior and Sport, the Disaster Risk
Management Unit, the Governorate of the Choco.

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The sena affects projects in several regions
of Colombia. Serving as an intermediary

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between mayors and governors to receive money
has been an old technique. In fact,

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in two thousand twenty- two Blue
Radio peridists denounced with testimonies from local

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leaders that officials of the Comptroller'
s office demanded coimas of between one and

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two percent in exchange for deceiving or
authorizing ocadbas projects. The supercostrus are another

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traditional tactic of corruption and of this
there is a fresher example, that of

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the famous carrots of La Guajira.
In January of this year, the National

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Unit for Disaster Risk Management announced the
delivery of forty tanks to supply water to

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several communities in La Guajira. Shortly
afterwards, price irregularities were observed and double

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acronyms revealed costs of up to twenty
zero million pesos in a contract that amounted

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to forty- six zero million and
could spend hours recounting the corruption scandals of

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each government. But I run out
of time for this chapter transparency by Colombia

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and again published his report Radiography of
the Acts of Corruption in Colombia two thousand

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sixteen, two thousand twenty. The
document is quite interesting because it shows precisely

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the wiring of methods of corruption.
For example, they found that the national

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government is the entity most affected by
acts of corruption thirty- two percent,

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followed by mayors twenty- seven percent. Then the private sector by twelve percent

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and the governorates by eleven percent.
But beyond those numbers, the most important

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data is more than fourteen million people
were directly affected by corruption. The majority

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of those directly affected are boys,
girls of adolescents followed by students and the

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socio- economically vulnerable population a and
añapa. In that period, between

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two thousand sixteen and two thousand twenty
were lost thirteen comma sixty- seven billion

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pesos in cases of corruption three times
the resources that were allocated for early childhood

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care in the nation' s general
budget. In two thousand twenty- one

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the data that the national governments are
the ones most affected by corruption crosses them

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with different scandals that have had to
work close to the presidents, even directly

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to the presidents, and one cannot
help wondering it is possible in Colombia that

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a president should be tried for corruption. He moves the question to Senators Humberto

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de la Calle and David Luna.
Of course, mechanisms to try presidents in

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Colombia exist and not just for corruption, for any other crime, and not

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just for crimes. The short constitution
that a president can be removed for indignity,

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which is a much broader concept.
Then the problem is not in the

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rules. What happens is that,
in practice, the system has meant that

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the House Indictment Commission, which is
the one that would present it to the

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House, to the proposal to accuse
a president before the Senate, because he

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lives co- opted by the Executive, which happens in general with Congress.

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So we' re in a little
bit of a jammed- up situation if

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there' s written law, but
in practice there' s no confidence in

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Congress. The incidence of the executive
branch is very high, in such a

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way that it paralyzes the trials,
which for Colombians in general, with more

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or less reason, has meant that
impunity for the high- level rulers is

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enormous and for many, I believe
it is something that in the present circumstances

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is impossible to modify. But of
course, Colombia may have a President of

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the Republic investigated, charged and convicted
for corruption or any other crime. The

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Constitution of the 1990s makes it absolutely
clear what is the procedure for doing so.

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More in the past they have made
political judgments. You will remember that

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of President Samper, who was investigated
by the Indictment Commission of the House,

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that his case reached the House Plenary, but the Plenary decided not to accuse

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him before the Senate of the Republic
for trial at that time. It seems

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to me that it is important to
remember history and it seems to me that

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it is very important to know in
this case the constitutional norm. This is

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not conjunctural. It' s not
about President Gustavo Petro being President today,

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or being left or right. It
is that there can be both evidence and,

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of course, researchers, in this
case, representatives to the House,

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with enough pants and a clean conscience
to be able to make decisions in law,

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not in politics, and in that
sense, because it is the representatives

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to the House who are part of
that commission of accusations. Recently, former

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prosecutor Alfonso Gómez Méndez reflected in a
column of opinion on this problem. The

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Ministry of the Interior, Ladian,
the National Electoral Council and other bodies already

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have sufficient tools to combat corruption.
What is required to get to the bottom

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of the problem is more political will. Corruption in Colombia has shown a decrease,

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at least in perception. However,
it continues to cost the resources for

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education, the feeding of children and
the water of the most thirsty, but

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also the lives of those who dare
to denounce. It' s so much

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that I can' t get half
an hour to talk about it. The

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disillusionment of Colombians with traditional politics is
hardly justified. It seems that there is

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no political party or government that has
not been spattered by corruption. However,

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it is a struggle in which we
cannot lower our arms, even if corruption

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shows itself to be everywhere and generate
resistance. AsÉlycobacter pilorit I am Roberto

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Pombo, or s is one chapter
eighty- eight of my questions. See

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you in the next chapter from now
on. This chapter of my questions is

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available on all podcast platforms. This
episode was made possible thanks to CAFAM family

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compensation box, Roberto Pombo Directorate,
General Production, Juan Abel Gutiérrez, editorial

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00:28:19.920 --> 00:28:25.720
advisor, Daniel San Pedro Espino,
Screenplays juan Abel Gutiérrez and Johnny Rodríguez.

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Field production Marcela Salazar and Lucía Beltrán. Post- production of audio Carlos Bernar