2009 Assessment

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

The effects of the consolidation of power in Venezuela's executive branch are far-reaching and of pressing concern. Political pressure from the executive branch influences the effectiveness and independence of virtually all government oversight agencies including the ombudsman, the supreme audit institution, the police force, and the courts. The election monitoring agency is described as having "no teeth" when it comes to monitoring donations to political parties, as audits of those donations are rarely completed. When political financing records are in fact audited, it is usually a form of political attack rather than a routine monitoring exercise. Local elections set for 2009 were pushed back a year and voter registration is often tampered with. The executive branch has censored opposition opinion in the media by suspending television stations, nationalizing many newspapers, and cutting state advertising to select outlets. Government procurement is often a non-transparent process, while the mechanisms to monitor state-owned enterprises, which play a significant role in the Venezuelan economy, "do not work properly."