Lisbon, Feb. 18, 2025 (Lusa) - The National Corruption Mechanism (MENAC) said on Tuesday that almost 500 state-owned entities and more than 11,000 private ones qualify to be notified for non-compliance with the General Regime for the Prevention of Corruption (RGPC).
According to a press release issued today with an update on legal compliance with registration on MENAC's RGPC platform, this body said that, within the scope of its "sanctioning powers", it began on Monday 17 February to "notify entities that are in a situation of non-compliance".
According to MENAC data provided to Lusa, on 17 February there were 490 state-owned entities and 11,463 iprivate ones n this situation, but this does not mean that all of them will be notified for non-compliance.
The organisation will analyse the situation on a case-by-case basis to see, for example, if the entities failed to register on the platform due to a failure to notify them initially.
This is because the contact emails used by MENAC are those in the databases of the Directorate-General for Public Administration and Employment (DGAEP), in the case of public organisations, and the Social Security Institute, in the case of private organisations, and may be out of date, making it impossible for the organisations to have actually been contacted.
The deadline for legally obliged entities to register on the RGPC platform ended on 14 February. The RGPC came fully into force in June 2024, obliging public and private entities with more than 50 employees to submit their corruption risk prevention plan (PPR), code of conduct, integrity training programme, identification of the person responsible for compliance with corruption prevention rules, and link to the reporting channel set up by each entity.
According to MENAC data, 1,105 public organisations and 4,536 private organisations registered by the deadline, out of more than 17,500 organisations that were required to do so.
Among the public bodies that failed to meet the deadline for registration is the parliament, as Público newspaper reported on Monday, pointing out that the national parliament still has no code of conduct or complaints channel.
Among the public bodies that have registered are two higher courts, the Court of Auditors and the Supreme Administrative Court, but not all courts have done so, said MENAC, noting that the decision of these sovereign bodies is based on an opinion from the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) which argues that courts are not subject to this obligation, which the anti-corruption mechanism disagrees with.
Regarding the failure of more than 11,000 private entities to register on the platform, MENAC explained to Lusa that in these cases, there is also a different interpretation of the law from that of the organisation, which leads many private companies to understand that they are not obliged to register.
"MENAC notes as highly positive all the commitment shown by thousands of entities covered, both public and private, which in recent months have actively sought to fulfil the tasks of designing the regulatory compliance instruments defined by the RGPC," reads the agency's press release.
The organisation points out that the goal of preventing corruption "is very much about encouraging voluntary compliance on the part of the entities covered" and that MENAC's work with public and private bodies has involved information, awareness-raising, training and guidance, "aware of the difficulties many public and private entities have in complying with the RGPC, to concretely manage the risks of exposure to corruption and related offences".
Failure to comply with the RGPC is penalised in the decree-law that established it, with fines ranging from €2,000 to €44,981.
IMA/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
