AUSTERITY, AUSTERITY, AUSTERITY

Bogotá, Aug.20th (CNE).- To snatch resources to corruption, the practice of obtain vote making promises and politicking, to use it in favor of misery's eradication, to construct equity and to offer democratic security is the main objective of Directive No. 10 sent today by the President of the Republic, Alvaro Uribe Vélez.

The Presidential Directive is the second element of his strategy of "Firm Hand against corruption and politicking and Great Heart with the poor". The first one was the Referendum presented the August 7th. The next one will be the reformations to the politics customs and the justice administration.

TRANSPARENCE AND AUSTERITY ARE THE INSTRUCTIONS

According to the World Bank, Colombia loses every year two billion pesos due to corruption. This amount of money would be useful, for instance, to bring more than 700 thousands of social interest houses support.

The Presidential Directive set the bases and principles that must guide civil servants to apply the Public Administration Renewal Plan. The National Council of Economical and Social Politics (Conpes), will work as a Directive Council. It will establish the general lines, its ranges and its assessment mechanisms.

National Planning will be the direct responsible of the plan's coordination and orientation. It will guard for its disclosure, it will guarantee its coherence and will assess its results.

Short term actions:

The Presidential Directive look forward to create a new culture of public affaires and to eliminate the inefficacy expense. The new culture implies transparent and austere administration in public resources management to the citizen's service nor for politic interests or individual ones.
To achieve those objectives, the Government will promote the following measures:
- Selection, promotion and election of functionaries by merit. This rule is from immediate application in all the state's entities.
- Elimination of parallels payroll and establishment of an integral model of assessment for civil servants.
- Zero tolerance with corruption. The Vice- presidency of the Republic, the Ministers, Directors and Managers from the state's entities, might establish preventive mechanisms against corruption, the diversion of resources and the influence of individual interests in state actions.
- State's costs reduction in bureaucracy and privileges. Savings will be invested in social projects and economically productive for the Nation.

Every entity chief might rationalize the free removal and appointment personnel, eliminate vacancy jobs without budgetary approval, to make agile the retirement processes and to restrict extra hours, mobile phones and official vehicles.
- This measures must be complemented with a goal fixation to reduce costs of functioning.
- Social benefits: it guarantees labor stability of mothers family-head, disabled and workers next to be pensioned.
- It will establish a bonus to rehabilitate civil servants whose job would be eliminated as a consequence of the Public Administration Renewal Plan.
- Diminish the unnecessary bureaucratic expense to invest in employment's generation, health and education. For that reason, it has forecast merge, elimination and. restructuring of administrative entities from National Order.

With every million that we save in bureaucracy, we will give basic education to a Colombian child during a year.

Short, medium and long term actions:
To consolidate itself, the Public Administration Renewal Plan requires of structural measures to short, medium and long term.

The main initiatives are:

- Adjustment of the civil servants regiment
- Consolidation of information systems, electronic government, purchase systems and state hiring
- New budgetary system and management directed by results
- These measures look forward two fundamental objectives: responsibility in administration of public affaires and management directed by results. In that direction it will promote:
- Community supervision and public audience to contracts adjudication.
- Control to performance index of state hiring in entities
- Creation of a unique body of juridical defense of the state.
- With the purpose of optimize production and goods and public services, it will establish a system of contracts by results, consistent with the following rules:
- Responsibility for the management and give account of it will be imputable to each Minister, administrative department's director and of administrative entities from national order.
- Each Minister, administrative department's director and head of entity from the national order sector, it will subscribe a document CONPES of commitment no longer than November 30th, 2002. In this will remain established its goals and commitments according to results for the four-year period management 2002-2006, consistent with the guidelines of the National Development Plan.
- Results of the CONPES document fulfillment it will link to incentives and penalties. To do it, the National Development Plan (NDP) will make a results report per semester to each sector, ministry and administrative department. The report will be public.
- The budget will be used as a management instrument. Based on results, there will be an award to the saving and goals achieving that will be given essentially for major investments.

The Government is bent on that the State serves to the citizens with austerity and efficiency.