Costa Rica News – How many people actually think that Recope or ICE would ever open their books for the public to see where the cash is going? About the same chance that the US government would show you where they spend their money.
However this is a little bit different. These are companies that directly control the cost of living in Costa Rica and it seems they could be a lot more efficient. Just because the profits are going to the government does not mean they can keep it a secret how they are spending their cash.
Marta Acosta, the general comptroller of Costa Rica, is speaking up against the secrecy of information affecting many public companies. These companies, such as banks, ICE, INS and Racsa, operate without transparency.
There is a law that allows companies that operate with competition to keep sensitive data private, however, there are not any acceptable ways of measuring what is sensitive and what isn’t. So companies can claim all of their data must remain private.
Neither the public nor the government has seen the budgets and financial information of some of these companies. Even the comptroller is made to hold parts of her audit report away from the public and even from Congress, under the idea that they are “strategic in nature.”
In a democratic system is it essential that there is transparency. Access to information is a fundamental base of democracy. We are talking about companies with budgets in the trillions of colones and we don’t know where the money goes!
Kind of funny that all governments want detailed accountability for personal finances but when it comes to their accounting it is not important.
