President Bachelet: “As public servants we must set ourselves higher standards”
This morning the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, signed the constitutional reform bill to ensure electoral transparency and establish grounds for the removal from office of officials who infringe expenditure rules.
In her speech the President said: “We are here today because of we want to take another step towards strengthening our democracy and its legitimacy. Legitimacy that comes from the trust that we, as a society, put in the correct functioning of our institutions and the competence of those we have elected to represent us.”
“This trust is undermined when we see cases like the ones exposed recently. And this is not part of the country that we are proud of. These practices have no place in a hard-working, honest, diligent country like ours” she added.
Speaking before ministers, members of Congress and members of the Advisory Council against corruption, conflicts of interests and the trafficking of influences, the President emphasized that “as public servants we must set ourselves higher standards and ensure that only those who are willing to act in the interests of Chile hold the country’s highest positions.”
“We are presenting a Constitutional Reform Bill which, as of the next elections, will result in the removal from office of those who defraud the laws that control the financing of electoral expenditure; and the procedures and regulations for this will be established by a Constitutional Organic Law enacted for this purpose” she explained.
“We are talking about elected officials without legislative powers. At the same time, I pledge my support for the parliamentary initiatives that will apply to Representatives and Senators which are also aimed at ensuring greater probity and electoral transparency,” she added.
President Bachelet announced that in addition to this bill, directives are being sent to Congress to limit spending on advertising, promotional activities, representational expenses and the use of vehicles by ministries.
“The use of state-owned vehicles by ministers, undersecretaries, heads of services, regional governors, governors and other officials must be strictly limited to work-related purposes” the President explained.
Another of the directives establishes that public officials will only be allowed to fly business class for journeys of more than 7,000 kilometers. “All of these measures are aimed at strengthening the transparency and probity that we must demonstrate to the public”, she noted.
Concluding her speech, the President said that “this bill responds to the demands of millions of fellow Chileans for greater scrutiny and penalties against those who undermine public confidence. But it also brings together recommendations made by various stakeholders, members of Congress, political figures and representatives from civil society, in the interests of fostering good practice and probity.”