The Comptroller General of the Republic spoke at the inauguration of the 2018 Academic Year of the ULS Law program.

Administrative control and the fight against corruption was the central theme of the presentation by the Comptroller General of the Republic, Jorge Bermúdez, during the inauguration of the 2018 Academic Year of the Law degree at the University of La Serena, an undergraduate program assigned to the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences (FACSE) of the state campus.

During his presentation, Bermúdez referred to the role played by the Comptroller General of the Republic, an autonomous body that ensures the care and good use of public resources; the challenges of the CGR in the fight against corruption; and the role of the Law course and its students in the face of this phenomenon.

“The Law is a very important tool in the fight against corruption, which I describe as a chronic disease (…). Corruption is a germ that is latent in society and in every organization, and if one is neglected, that germ can begin to proliferate and infect the organization. So you have to be careful, that's why you have to name it appropriately and you have to take preventive mechanisms in the first place, but also repressive ones when this germ spreads," he expressed during this activity, adding that international organizations calculate that if there were no corruption in Latin America, each inhabitant would raise their per capita income.

For Bermúdez, corruption generates a crisis of mistrust and one of the ways to combat this phenomenon is through strengthening institutions. “One of our mandates is to supervise how public services, the State administration bodies, comply with the objectives of sustainable development,” he stated in his presentation, adding that according to the OECD, the Comptroller's Offices can provide fundamental evidence to evaluate the functioning of the public sector.

In his speech, along with addressing the functions of the Comptroller's Office (Audit, Legal, Accounting and Jurisdictional), he explained that there are three levels of corruption that must be fought against: bribery and bribery, fraud (judicial, accounting, electoral) and embezzlement Of funds; conflicts of interest, influence peddling and cronyism; and poorly done work, bad administrative practices and exchange of favors.

Bermúdez stressed that among the most recurrent complaints are influence peddling, that is, the lack of probity in the awarding of a tender that benefits a family member of the public official; the improper use of public resources for personal benefit in the pre-electoral period; and the lack of official obligations.

According to the Comptroller, the above generates a series of challenges for the organization, among them, resistance to the control of public resources, the decrease in regulatory complexity, the increase in penalties for corruption crimes and the use of Big Data in the public sector for the massive exchange of information.

He also highlighted that the Comptroller General's Office is seen as the institution with the lowest perception of corruption in Chile, according to the results of the 2017 Corruption Survey.

Finally, he urged future ULS lawyers to confront the problem of corruption, specifying that this requires them to have solid legal knowledge and professional ethical training, to be intolerant of copying and plagiarism, and to exercise citizenship. and report

In the activity carried out in the Pentagon Room of the Andrés Bello Campus, the Rector of the ULS, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés; the Regional Comptroller, Hugo Segovia; the Regional Defender of Coquimbo, Inés Rojas; the judge of the Tax and Customs Court of Coquimbo, César Verdugo; the Dean of FACSE, Dr. Luperfina Rojas, authorities, managers, academics and a large number of law students.

Protocol visit to Rector U. of La Serena

Within the framework of his visit to the University of La Serena, the Comptroller General met with the Rector of the state campus, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés, who within the framework of the activity gave him institutional background regarding the Strategic Development Plan of the ULS and priority work areas in recent years.

The Dean of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Dr. Luperfina Rojas; The Secretary General Mg. Sergio Zepeda the Director of the Law degree, lawyer Germán Solís and the Regional Comptroller, Hugo Segovia, an opportunity in which the Comptroller left his message of gratitude for the reception given within the framework of his arrival in La Serena in the book of illustrious visitors. .

see photo gallery