Once again, Chile’s Contraloría, or rather its new boss, takes aim at abuse, this time in the Public Education system.
Although by law, industrial action is forbidden in the public sector, that hasn’t stopped the Commie-dominated teachers union, the Colegio de Profesores, from instigating frequent strikes, disrupting the already-dysfunctional public education system.
What’s more, these striking teachers expect, and continue to be paid while indulging in industrial action. What Dorothy Pérez proposes are wage stoppages for days not worked, as in other countries.
The document, signed by Comptroller Dorothy Pérez Gutiérrez, establishes that “the absence of education professionals from their duties due to voluntarily adhering to an illegal work stoppage necessarily entails a deduction from their wages for the amount of time not worked.”
The howls of rage from the Colegio de Profesores duly arrived, accusing the Contraloria of a politically-motivated operation.
The recent swath of scandals that the Contraloria has uncovered leads me to think that all is not lost in Chile - if all those corrupt and damaging vested interests can be dealt with decisively.
Boric took over a year to appoint Pérez after the previous Comptroller, Bachelet-appointed Bermúdez stood down. Bermúdez had tried to block her appointment, probably foreseeing that she would revolver el gallinero.
About time too, imho.
1 Like
Yeah, it seems like she’s the one person that is trying to stand up to the corruption. I have respect for what she is doing.
1 Like
Such efforts, to take arms against a sea of venial corruption here, are laudable, but it is so much a part of the culture, so deeply and comfortably embedded in the national psyche, so widespread as to achieve a degree of acceptance, that we should not expect to see any meaningful positive change for many decades, if ever. Les guste o no, Chile is 100 percent Latin America, with all that this entails, and the sacraments of cheat-the-system and cheat-thy-neighbor are the foundation pillars of this society.
Of course the Boric government started out with all these pretty words about “probity” and honorable actions of government. In the last Cuenta Publica that fraudulent appearance of concern for the matter seemed conspicuously absent. La Tercera, and a reminder that the Boric government has essentially abandoned the quest for even minimal integrity:
Following the trend towards the irrelevance of the probity and transparency agenda, in his public account last Sunday the president acknowledged the inadequacy of the Estrategia Nacional de Integridad Pública [National Public Integrity Strategy]. He called on Congress to approve the projects presented, but does the effort to erect obstacles to corruption end with the mere presentation of a project? Does the executive branch not have the tools to prioritize legislative discussion? Or is it not possible to convene a popular pact for new values and higher standards in politics?
Today, the probity agenda seems to be slowly fading away. Efforts seem to be exhausted in the presentation of projects; the political world seems to be resting on declarations rather than actions.
Read the rest in the vernacular: