For the past fifty long years, I have practised journalism and have interacted, among others, with institutions such as public companies, located since 1995 in SEPI and previously in INI or in the State Heritage. I do not know how many hundreds of times I have crossed the doors of the old mansion of INI in the Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca, and after the blessing of the head porter (Mr Candil, who knew the mood of the house), I have interviewed presidents and executives of INI (now SEPI) from the last terminal Francoism to well into democracy with UCD and PSOE governments.
INI was a copy of its Italian counterpart created by Mussolini. It was about the State constructing industry in a country in ruins. And I maintain that it achieved its purpose, with stumbles and successes, but with a positive balance. Brilliant people passed through that house who did things for the country. Also some scoundrel later discovered and evicted.
This prologue is relevant to what is today its equivalent: SEPI and its moral and business collapse. And ¡Its management team under investigation by the National Court! And the middle managers, competent officials and professionals, between astonished and embarrassed by the shenanigans of their bosses and the long hands of commission agents and schemers who, sheltered by the ruling party and the Government itself, have engaged in indecorous and criminal operations.
The more we talk about “good corporate governance” and “social responsibility of boards”, we find the public business sector that skips all regulations and good business practices, installed in the pathological zone of that erroneous word.
And the most painful thing is that once the shadow areas, the suspicious operations, the irregular conduct are detected… nothing happens. The government places all its trust in the people who have abused the trust placed in them. Well, something does happen. An investigating judge and the anti-corruption prosecutor detect operations in which, for the moment, they have found suspicious situations. They have requested explanations and are investigating suspicious aspects that they want to clarify. Presumption of innocence, of course; but the water is murky.
And instead of collaborating with the judge and prosecutor, the government closes ranks with its allies, with its appointees, and evades responsibility with arguments that they are victims of persecution and sheltering under the presumption of innocence.
Meanwhile, dozens of people, now retired, who dedicated their professional life to the public business sector (I have spoken with several in recent days) are aware of the latest events (also some previous ones) and their blood runs cold. They are pained by what remains of the house to which they dedicated effort, successes, and mistakes, and they curse those who have allowed and fostered such an outcome.
The public business sector has a double duty of ethical and aesthetic compliance, the one imposed by codes of good governance and the mandate of public service to attend to the common good, to the general interest and not to that of a few opportunists.
