The Administrative Court (TA) defends the adoption of new mechanisms of internal, external, and public administration control as fundamental elements in the fight against corruption in the sector.

According to Jeremias Zuande, Accountant General of the Accounts and Audit Office of the Administrative Court, the control of public revenue and expenditure, in its formal and material aspects leads to a framework where corruption is reduced.

To this end, as he explained a few days ago during a meeting at the Procuradoria-Geral da República (Prosecutor General's Office) on the occasion of the African Day for the Fight against Corruption, the way to mitigate the phenomenon is the culture of accountability by all public managers who receive and manage state funds

"Corruption is defined as the phenomenon whereby a public official is led to act differently from the normative standards of the system, favoring particular interests in exchange for reward. The existence of corruption implies waste of public resources that could be allocated to activities generating greater social welfare. Corruption undermines development, so the more transparent public managers are, there will be a reduction of the phenomenon, in other words, less detour of funds and state assets," he explained.

He stressed that the TA is committed to controlling the legality of administrative acts and the application of regulatory norms issued by the Public Administration, as well as monitoring the legality of public revenues and expenses, including the enforcement of liability for financial infractions.

"The problem of corruption should be understood as the undue favoring of interests that undermine the development of any society. In the trials of those responsible for embezzlement of public funds, goods, or values, the possibility of perceiving situations of corruption is broad, and the more effective the supervisory action, the greater the returns of funds diverted from corrupt actions," he said, adding that transparency and social control are mechanisms that influence the reduction of corruption.

However, he stressed that in cases of embezzlement or mismanagement of public funds, financial responsibility is personal and falls on the agent or agents of the action.

Financial responsibility presupposes the existence of fault and is independent of the damage actually caused. (News)