Spain pledges new transparency law on public spending

Spain’s government pledged yesterday to keep officials honest by passing a new law of transparency in public finances that will criminalise mismanagement of tax­payers’ money.

“This is a law that will enable us to strengthen the credibility of our country’s institutions and, through this credibility, strengthen trust,” government spokesman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told reporters.

She said the proposed law would make available to the public detailed information about the allocation of public contracts and subsidies as well as regularly updated details of public budgets.

The Bill will be opened up to public consultation for two weeks for citizens to make suggestions, Ms Saenz told a news conference after a cabinet meeting.

It will impose “a code of governance for the first time with legal force for all the public administrations,” and criminalise the fiddling of public accounts, she said. Public officials judged to have mismanaged public funds, including by failing to meet the government’s recent budget and debt rules, could thus be fined and barred from certain official posts for up to 10 years.

Spain is fighting to maintain investor confidence in its public finances after it far exceeded its deficit target last year. The government blames much of the excess on spending by regional authorities.

Several towns and regions have been hit by corruption scandals implicating public officials, some of them with links to high levels of the ruling Popular Party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Members of the so-called Indignants protest movement that sprang up across Spain last year had demanded a transparency law, saying that a widespread lack of accountability for public officials breeds corruption.