In the last few weeks some politicians and analysts have strongly questioned this “finding”, and they have all the reason to do so, being the article written by the sociologist Salas, one of the most potent ones regarding this subject. Regardless of this, some of the 23 congressmen mentioned have had the nerve to declare that such support from the mining companies would not oblige them to anything, as their trajectory itself would demonstrate.

By Raúl Chacón

March 15, 2011. Unfortunately, none of these congressmen have excelled by a really critical position towards mining (support to the consulting Law and to Law projects regarding levy on the over gains of mining companies or to charge mining royalties from the large companies). Much to  the contrary, some of them, in their quality of members in the Mining and Energy Committee of the Congress, have had meetings, in a “curious” way, to say the least, with officers of one mining company, contradicting among themselves when questioned about the objectives of such meetings when it came out publicly. It clearly shows us that the law about lobbying must be improved or updated to face such circumstances.

Last but not least, in order to have governability, more than investing in the “quality of the congressmen” there should be more investments in the strengthening  of the civil society capabilities, and not just expect that this type of task be taken on only by NGOs (ecologists or not) , which have been accused of being supposedly against the “national development”. Best regards

Raul Chacón