HAVANA, August 29 (Jesús Zúñiga) - "The danger of corruption grows as we open the economy" to foreign capital, warned Cuban vice president Carlos Lage, speaking before an audience of foreign businessmen which also included Cuban president Fidel Castro.
"We are far from experiencing corruption in the government," Lage assured the group. Yet, he said, "there have been instances of weakness and accomodation, but not at the higher levels of government."
Lage issued a warning against the "custom in foreign companies of making gifts to their counterparts."
The fight against corruption has become one of the priorities of the Cuban authorities. An ethics code was issued in 1997 for government officials, auditors are actively looking for irregularities, and the crimes of "influence-peddling" and "illicit negotiations" have been
incorporated into the penal code.
In any such instances, said Lage, "we act without tolerance or flexibility; the guilty officials are punished and terminated from their jobs."
Versión original en español
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