Peru : Indicators

The Political Constitution of Peru establishes access to public information as one of the fundamental rights of every citizen. The country also has Law No. 27806, the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information, which has been in force since 2003, and which regulates every citizen’s right to request information and the obligation of the State bodies to publish information on their websites and/or disseminate it in newspapers and periodical reports.

Since the outset of the programme, DAR has measured the level of compliance of the public institutions with responsibilities in administration of the forest sector with the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information and the specific regulations on implementation of transparency websites. Compared to 2011, the levels of transparency and access to information have increased slightly, and in particular the Regional Governments have implemented measures for greater transparency within their institutions. However, there are still government bodies which do not even reach 50% compliance in their levels of transparency (as far as their Websites are concerned). In addition, there are public bodies which either do not publish all the information required by law, or publish it in an incomplete or outdated manner.

It is true that some progress has been made, but this is relatively insignificant given that change is very slow and in some cases it seems as though the topic of transparency and access to public information has been stopped or put on “stand by”; this could be because in practice there is no real monitoring of this topic by the State. The Congress of the Republic and the Office of the Auditor General of the Republic should take on a real commitment to monitor the public institutions, and take the appropriate measures in cases of non-compliance with the law. It should also be stated that since 2008 the Public Ombudsman has been publishing reports and annual balances on supervision of the transparency websites of the regional governments and provincial municipalities located in departmental capitals; furthermore, in April 2012, this body proposed the creation of an Autonomous National Authority on Transparency which, if implemented, would be great progress in implementing genuine oversight and monitoring of the public institutions in this field.