Yesterday the 2009 edition annual survey done by the Mexican 'Fundar' organization, called the "Latin American Index of Budget Transparency" was published. The title is a bit of a mouthful, but what this survey does is check on the region's national governments to see how open they are at the time of budgeting and deploying state funds.In other words, it's a way of telling the chances that the corrupt scum that milk their governments for their own back pockets have for ripping off the people. According the Fundar, any score below 60 is a fail.
In the words of José María Marín, head honcho of Fundar, this year's results were "very disheartening". Apart from Costa Rica, every single country surveyed failed the test. Well, count Otto as unsurprised, as you can argue the merits of "my country is run by scum, but less scum than your country" if you like (Venezuela bottom, natch) but the whole culture of graft and budget secrecy isn't one that is isolated to this-or-that-spot. In fact, thinking about it, it's pretty impressive that Costa Rica has managed to lift itself out of the trough.