Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2024 – Country Notes: Mexico

Contextual factors

 

State structure	Executive power	Legislative system	Legal system
Federal	Presidential	Bicameral	Civil law

Strategy and institutions on anti-corruption and public integrity

Mexico has created the National Anticorruption System (NAS), led by an inter-institutional Co-ordinating Committee and supported by an Executive Secretariat. The NAS is tasked with elaborating a federal anti-corruption strategy. The National Anticorruption Policy (PNA) identifies four main objectives: 1) Fight corruption and impunity; 2) Combat arbitrariness and abuse of power; 3) Promote the improvement of public management and government-society contact points; and 4) Involve society and the private sector. The PNA is complemented by the National Programme to Combat Corruption and Impunity and Improve Public Management (2019-24).

Mexico has institutions supervising open data (National Institution for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection), political finance (National Electoral Institute), potential conflict-of-interest situations of the judiciary (Conflict-of-Interest Office of the Comptroller of the Federal Judiciary Council) and of the executive (Ministry of Public Administration), but no entity monitoring lobbying. Mexico also developed a central harmonisation unit for internal control and internal audit within the Ministry of Public Administration.

Overview

 

Greatest strengths	Areas to improve
Anti-corruption strategy	Lobbying
Political finance	Transparency of public information - regulation
Corruption risk management and audit - regulation	Corruption risk management and audit - implementation

Anti-corruption strategy

Mexico has one of the best strategic frameworks on anti-corruption and public integrity among OECD countries. The National Programme to Combat Corruption and Impunity and Improve Public Management includes a situation analysis comprising an identification of existing public integrity risks, outcome level indicators for the public integrity objectives, and target values for all outcome-level indicators. Moreover, the strategy refers to several international legal instruments relating to public integrity.

The strategy and its action plans also refer to several data sources, household surveys and public administration data. The strategy further benefited from an ex-ante consultation process, and progress on attainment of its objectives is being tracked and reported upon in the monitoring reports.

Corruption risk management and audit

As measured against OECD standards on risk management, which includes internal control and internal audit, Mexico fulfils 72% of criteria on regulations and 33% for practice. By comparison, the OECD average is 67% and 33% respectively.

Mexico’s regulations on internal control, promoted by the Ministry of Public Administration, are among the best in OECD countries. There are mandatory annual reporting activities from all federal entities in the public sector, including state-owned enterprises, national credit institutions and trusts. Every public organisation has been internally audited. However, in Mexico internal auditors do not have unrestricted access to political staff and senior management. Despite the existence of a central harmonisation unit within the Ministry of Public Administration, there are no centralised data on whether public organisations at the federal level conduct risk assessments to gauge fraud and integrity risks across the public sector. Regarding the adoption and implementation rates of internal audit recommendations, Mexico is the top performer among OECD countries. 100% of recommendations made during the previous year by internal audit units across the public sector were adopted by management within one year, and 100% of such recommendations were implemented within one year.

Lobbying

As measured against OECD standards on lobbying, Mexico fulfils 25% of criteria for regulations, and fulfils 33% of the criteria on practice, compared to the OECD average of 38% and 35% respectively.

Mexico does not have an institution supervising lobbying, and regulations do not include cooling off periods for public officials before undertaking lobbying activities after having left office. The code of conduct applicable to Members of Parliament does not mention of at-risk situations concerning lobbying. Although there is a lobbying register, it does not include information on expenses for lobbying activities nor the legislation targeted.

Conflict of interest

As measured against OECD standards on conflict of interest, Mexico fulfils 89% of criteria for regulations, and 44% of criteria for practice. The OECD average is 76% and 40% respectively.

In Mexico regulations include the obligation of submitting an interest declaration for elected officials, judges and senior civil servants. Regulations impose sanctions proportional to the severity of the breach in cases of non-compliance, ranging from financial penalties to the disqualification from working in the public sector. In practice, all members of the government have declared their interests in the past six years. Moreover, in the past four years, more than 80% of the judges of the Supreme Court have declared their interests. However, data is not available on the submission rates for the members of the parliament. A risk-based methodology verification of interest declarations is still being developed, and currently only a sample of declarations are being verified for the executive power.

Political finance

As measured against OECD standards on political finance, Mexico fulfils 90% of criteria for regulations, but only 71% of those for practice, compared to the OECD average of 73% and 58% respectively.

In Mexico, political finance regulations establish a threshold for personal contributions, as well as a ban on anonymous donation, foreign contributions to political parties and from state-owned enterprises. Campaign expenses also have a ceiling, and candidates are personally liable for breaches of political finance regulations. The National Electoral Institute oversees the implementation of political finance safeguards. In particular, the institution collects and publishes in a user-friendly format parties’ financial report for the last five years and information on parties’ potential breaches of political finance regulations.

Transparency of public information

As measured against OECD standards on public information, which includes access to information and open data, Mexico fulfils 67% of criteria for regulations and 65% of criteria for practice, compared to the OECD average of 67% and 62% respectively.

The entity disseminating open data in Mexico, the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection, carries out inspections on compliance with the provisions established in both the General Law and the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Public Information, as well as the General Law of Transparency and Access to Public Information by obligated subjects. It also publishes reports on the state of information transparency in the public sector and sanctions non-compliance. The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection also collects and publishes information on the requests for access to data. Available datasets include the consolidated version of primary legislation, draft laws, together with asset declaration for elected officials, members of the Supreme Court, senior civil servants and their salaries. Nevertheless, conflict-of-interest declarations for members of the judiciary are not publicly available, and agendas of ministerial and government meetings are not published.