Anti-corruption Office: Guidelines to Create and Strengthen Integrity and Transparency Nationwide

Resolution No. 16/2020 (the "Resolution") of the Anti-corruption Office (the "AO"), which was issued on Friday, August 7, approved the "Guidelines for the creation and strengthening of integrity and transparency areas in national, provincial and municipal jurisdictions" (the "Guide").

According to the Guidelines' own words, it aims "to orientate and assist entities of the Argentine public sector as well as provincial and municipal entities, both in creating integrity and transparency areas within their scope, and in strengthening the work performed in this field".

As specified in the reasons provided for issuing the Resolution these Guidelines seek to coordinate the actions that different governmental entities take to comply with a transparency and integrity agenda.

The main regulatory precedent to this Resolution is Decree No. 650/2019, which set forth that jurisdictions and entities that comprise the centralized and decentralized Argentine Public Administration will have an Integrity Link in the Exercise of Public Functions to implement awareness and training strategies on transparency and integrity issues, to promote compliance with public ethics obligations, and to report its progress to the AO.

With these Guidelines, the AO seeks to broaden the scope of the Decree so that its principles are also applied in provinces, municipalities and decentralized entities. This pursuit is based on the Decree which encourages the provinces and municipalities to take similar measures to the ones in the Decree in their respective areas.

The Guidelines are divided in sections that deal with the importance of creating transparency areas in governmental entities, the creation and standing of these areas in the corresponding flow chart, their dimensions and resources, which must be in agreement to those of the entity, the functions and competences that the area must have, and the systems and networks of integrity and interagency coordination that must exist between governmental entities of diverse levels and hierarchies.

These Guidelines are one more step in the institutional transparency agenda towards being in line with international standards set by entities such as the OECD, as the Resolution itself states.