Luis Barrionuevo pronounced in 1990 one of those phrases that instantly become part of Creole folklore.
"We have to
try not to steal at least two years
in this country," said the trade unionist in Hora Clave, under the watchful eye of Mariano Grondona.
His proposal contained a hymn to Argentine identity: the solution (“no stealing”) did not have to be permanent, it was enough to be transitory (“at least two years”).
A patch
, authentic national symbol.
But at the same time, the gastronomic suggested something that constitutes a universal truth:
the less corruption, the greater the wealth.
Nothing exposes it better than the Corruption Perception Index of the NGO Transparency International (TI), which surveys 180 countries and ranks them from least to most corrupt.
In its recently published 2022 survey,
the top ten places are occupied by nations with a high quality of life
: Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland (with the same score as Luxembourg).
On the contrary, in the last ten places are several of the poorest countries on the planet.
They are Somalia, Syria, South Sudan, Venezuela, Yemen, Libya, North Korea, Haiti, Equatorial Guinea, and Burundi.
Places with
civil wars, famines and/or dictatorships
.
Ideal broth for corruption, which feeds misery.
As concrete proof, South Sudan, Burundi and Yemen are also among the ten worst countries in the United Nations Human Development Index 2021.
At the same time, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands are among the top ten on that list.
Argentina, as published by Clarín, appears from the middle of the table downwards in the TI ranking, in
a somewhat honorable position of 94
, with the same score as Brazil, Ethiopia, Morocco and Tanzania.
The country, which boasts not the least detail of a current vice president, Cristina Kirchner, convicted of committing corruption crimes while she was president, adds 38 points, the same as last year (the maximum is 100; Denmark reached 90).
Far from
the 74 of Uruguay
(position 14) or the 67 of Chile (position 27).
TI's president, Delia Ferreira Rubio, identifies several of the reasons for the poor local performance.
She speaks of "
norms that are not applied, institutions that do not fulfill their function and sanctions that are imposed only in isolated cases
, guaranteeing impunity for the corrupt."
Ferreira Rubio is forceful in his diagnosis.
“The
lack of integrity of officials is also a form of corruption
and violation of public ethics standards.
The Vaccinatorio VIP and the Olivos-party were clear examples, ”she wrote in a column for this newspaper.
Just as the relationship between little corruption and the wealth of countries is direct, another element unavoidably appears as the third side of a virtuous triangle.
It is investment in education.
The top ten in honesty Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland and New Zealand are among the 15 countries that spend the most money on education per inhabitant.
Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Burundi, South Sudan and Somalia, where corruption is rampant, appear among the 25 that invest the least.
Argentina, once again, sails in the middle of the table.
Another no less detail: since the Educational Financing Law was enacted in 2006, until 2020 (last year with statistics), only in three years was the goal that requires investing 6% of GDP met.
In other words, in the last 15 years
the State should have put some 26,000 million dollars more in the area
.
The results -of not doing it- are in sight.
The recipe to get out of the eternal crisis once and for all does not seem so mysterious.
But yes, we already know the oxen with which we plow.
look too
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