Introduction
We are a young society, where transparency is a right that is rarely exercised and established, government agencies rarely provide information.It is pertinent that mechanisms for access to information and procedures are established in the different government entities explicit review. In the latter case, it is necessary to have specialized and impartial bodies or agencies with operational autonomy, budget management and decision-making, as well as having a law that establishes the rights of citizens and public servants, then we will talk about transparency in Mexico, of how society is submerged in a country that does not exercise the rights to which it is counted.
Background
The term transparency derives from the Latin 'trans' (beyond, through) and from 'parere' (to appear, show or show oneself) is, therefore, to carry out activities in a way that can be deep and detailed to be known.
When we talk about transparency, it is possible to think that we do not have it or that we cannot legally access it, so we are not able to give merit, by virtue of the fact that the idea that we can know the financial reports of our expenses seems so far away public, a situation that means that we do not exercise our right of access to free information. In the antecedents of Mexico, it was not common for citizens to obtain information related to public spending, which was practically nil, that meant a setback in society, the way of seeing the government in a discontented way, since they reflected a way of being unable to be transparent. Legally, there was no way to oblige the agencies to provide all the information they requested.Financial reports from the federal government were delivered to the Chamber of Deputies, responsible for their authorization, but details of public spending were rarely known to citizens.
In 2007, article 6 was reformed, committing states and municipalities to guarantee the right to information, a reform that did not make major changes for a society that is not willing to inform itself, that was submerged in monotony.
Development
Transparency opens the information to public scrutiny so that those interested can review it, analyze it and, where appropriate, use it as a mechanism to sanction. The democratic government must be accountable to report or explain its actions and must be transparent to show its operation and submit to the evaluation of citizens. It is not misleading that in our past times in Mexico, very long bureaucratic procedures had to be carried out, and even when information was requested from our public services, we lacked information, which caused the bureaucratic procedures that were available.
Democracy is a birth of our modern culture. We live in a free and sovereign state, where it is our right to choose governors, to know what the objective of our taxes is is the freedom we have as Mexicans. It is therefore that the right to information arises and with it transparency arises, which constitutes receiving and giving information from our public servants. It is frequent that when we want to know about data or contracts in Mexico they give us a resounding denial despite the advances of the transparency law, even though we are stuck in simulation in some public agencies we do not have the delicacy to instruct ourselves in terms of redemption of public expenses.
As Doyle (Kate, 2003) argues, public administration implies favoring the redemption of accounts for citizens so that they can evaluate the performance of government entities and contribute to the democratization of Mexico.
The Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Public Government Information was approved unanimously in the Congress of the Union and today there are 28 entities of the federation that already have their own legal systems. Both facts show that transparency is a true national agreement to transform and democratize the State at all levels.
We are still with the mentality if we reach a secretary or public administration tell us that the information we request cannot be received, being a right we must demand that it be complied with as the law dictates.
As Maria Marvan mentions. “Mexico is going through a crisis or unfortunate group that forces us to reconsider the limits to which the loss of legitimacy of the government may reach” (Laborde, 2014). It is congruent that the government can emphasize this circumstance, face in an honorable way that it developed a front against corruption and the lack of ethics by its public officials, today it has a central role in the process through which we need to go, it is a commitment to all and all rebuild what was lost, render accounts to citizens so that each one feels part of a committed society.
However, article 6 of the Constitution establishes that “all information in the possession of any authority (…) that receives and exercises public resources or performs acts of authority at the federal, state and municipal levels is public and may only be temporarily reserved for reasons of public interest and national security.
If all the people who are part of Mexico set the goal of requesting information on public expenditures from each institution in the country, the progress would be magnificent because each agency would have the mentality of doing things well according to the regulations, citizens would have full confidence in their government, which gives them good results, however, by not participating, bureaucrats are used to not doing constant work.In the application of this right, public servants must accept that they are subject to permanent scrutiny, for anyone, at any time and from anywhere. Both citizens and citizens have the right to make a difference if each one establishes it, transparency would give the desired results.
The greatest impact of accountability and transparency will be seen in the long term. One of the benefits it provides us is to ensure the provision of goods and services that it does not provide or does so in an inadequate way and to guarantee an efficient operation.
conclusion
If more Mexicans establish the exercise of our right to information in article 6 of the transparency law and article 8 in which we have the right to demand from the public servant the pertinent information that we need. State and municipal administrators have a duty to provide us with timely and accurate information on how they invest resources.
From this perspective, access to information contributes to reinforcing accountability mechanisms and directly affects a higher quality of democracy. The obligation to be transparent and grant public access to information opens communication channels between State institutions and society, by allowing citizens to participate in public affairs and conduct a review of government exercise. We Mexicans must exercise our right, if we do not establish and adapt, we will be losing a fight against ourselves.
