Measuring governmental transparency in emergency hiring for the fight against the Covid-19 in Sergipe: contribution to the control of Public Management

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to measure the governmental transparency of municipal bodies in the state of Sergipe regarding their emergency contract agreements for the Covid-19 response, through the development of a specific index. Using a qualitative and descriptive approaches, this case study analyzed 75 municipalities in Sergipe based on indicators of public transparency provided by Transparency International Brazil organization, Brazilian legislation and specialized literature. An evaluation model was development as an index of information transparency for the Covid-19 response (ITI-COVID). The index was applied in the selected municipalities, showing that there is transparency in its intrinsic sense of dissemination of information, but not in its instrumental sense, i.e., as a tool to promote accountability. The study identifies that more than 80% of the counties showed insufficient levels of public transparency, which qualifies them within the Fox´s concept of “opaque transparency”.