Hoy newspaper leads with the story that a new coalition of business organizations and civil society groups has been formed. The ?Coalition for Transparency? will be made up of 52 organizations, including the National Council of Business (CONEP), the Young Entrepreneurs Association (ANJE), Participaci?n Ciudadana and the Foundation for Justice and Institutionalism (FINJUS). The formation of the coalition is a reaction to what the group sees as the moral degradation and increased corruption currently afflicting the country. As well as calling for the resignation, announced today, of JCE President Ram?n Morel Cerda, the Coalition for Transparency also voiced the need for a political truce, the suspension of ?belligerent? political language, a reduction of electoral campaigning activities, and a cap on electoral campaign spending. They also stressed the need for absolute transparency in the Baninter proceedings, asking ?that the appropriate judicial mechanisms be applied and that impunity should not again prevail.? The group also reiterated their request that the recommendations of the report produced by the committee set up to look into streamlining the public payroll be implemented.
El Caribe reports that in the first three months of this year, an average of 116 employees were hired by the government each day, for a total of 10,431. The central government employs 313,706 people, and of these, 76,546 are termed ?nominal?, meaning they have no specific functions. By contrast, decentralized government bodies actually managed to reduce their staff count by 1,000 individuals, while municipalities laid-off about 2,000 employees. These figures were published in a Central Bank report.
Central Bank governor Jose Lois Malkum admitted last year the government already had a surplus of 125,000 employees on the state payroll.