Marco Tulio Quintanilla is a Salvadoran small business owner who sells surgical instruments to hospitals and to the Salvadoran Institute for Social Security (ISSS). Up until recently, he had difficulty participating in public tenders because he did not have key information that would allow him to compete with other companies on a level playing field. “I needed to know the technical specifications, price references of the winners, the criteria used to take the decisions and who took them”, Marco Tulio tells us. “When I requested this information, it was denied repeatedly. I found out through the media about the existence of the Institute for Access to Public Information and I went there”.  

Like other Latin American countries, El Salvador faces the challenge of fighting corruption and improving the quality of its democracy. Despite certain advances, the Central American country continues to get a failing grade in the Corruption Perceptions Index released each year by Transparency International.

The Transparency and Access to Information Act, in force since May 2011, has opened up a channel for improving this situation. Now State agencies must provide updated information on their websites, and people have a consolidated right to request and receive information generated, managed or in the possession of the agencies, with certain exceptions included in the law. The Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP), in operation since February 2013, is the guarantor of this right.

The IAIP is already taking its first steps to enforce the right of access to information. Citizens have started to file complaints when a public information denies them information. The cases are varied: public tenders, salaries of civil servants or advisers, alleged violations of human rights, or information useful in the daily life of citizens in areas such as education and health.

Marco Tulio's is one such case. “Thanks to the IAIP, the ISSS had to give me the information free of charge. With greater transparency, there will be more price competition, which will benefit the institution”.

The culture of opacity in government agencies, combined with citizens' indifference and lack of knowledge, are significant obstacles. Making progress in this area involves raising the awareness of citizens and public servants, and strengthening the guarantor institutions. EUROsociAL, the European Union cooperation programme for social cohesion, has joined this effort and, since 2013, has been supporting transparency and information access policies in El Salvador. Thanks to this support, the IAIP commissioners have gained in-depth knowledge of the experience of the Chilean counterparts. At the same time, they have been advised on how to prepare their Strategic Plan and on issues such as public archive management, protection of personal data, and monitoring the compliance of the public institutions bound by the law.

Other Salvadorans are following in Marco Tulio's footsteps. We travel to a rural community near the town of Suchitoto, an area that was intensely affected by the country's civil war between 1980 and 1992. Andrés Antonio Romero, a rural farmer who in 1983 was allegedly captured by government troops during a military operation, welcomes us. Andrés saw one of his daughters die in this armed incursion and, after his release, he looked for his other seven children and his wife. He managed to find three of them, two being held in Salvadoran military facilities and one living in the United States, where he had been adopted.

In 2013, taking advantage of the Access to Information Act, and with the help of human rights organisations, he filed a request with the Ministry of Defence for all available information on his case. When this was denied, he went to the IAIP which, after another denial, asked to inspect the files themselves, a request that was also denied. Despite the lack of progress, Andrés considers that “the door is starting to open for cases like mine; it's being publicised and at least the Institute has given us a voice, although they are still denying the existence of the information”.

Before the Access to Information Act, it was difficult to take cases of poor public management to court, because there was no proof. Now, institutions are aware that the citizen has this tool, which has a deterrent effect.

Thanks to the IAIP, Claudia Reyes, is taking her first steps to sue for the death of her son due an alleged medical error. Recently the IAIP obliged El Salvador's ISSS to give her the name of the sedative administered to her premature son, information they had refused her for years. Likewise, the IAIP has resolved that the ISSS must do everything in its power to recover her son's medical record, which had been classified as non-existent.

“We all have the right to know, to have access to our own information, and generally it is denied. But thanks to the Institute, I was able to exercise my rights. We're still fighting, but I feel 100% supported”, Claudia tells us.

The road continues to be arduous, but little by little Salvadorans are managing to defeat the culture of secrecy and make it so public information is not considered the exclusive province of civil servants but rather something that belongs to all citizens.

Por Borja Díaz Rivillas, Técnico Senior FIIAPP del Programa EUROsociAL