How much the President earns

Did you know that the President of Chile currently earns $7,326,180 (Chilean pesos) a month?

How do I know?
A Government Transparency law has recently come into effect where each public sector from the Government to City Councils needs to allow the public to freely access information about everything administrative. This includes finding out how much everyone gets paid and where their tax-paying money goes, to what has been sold and bought and to/from who and for how much. You can learn interesting tidbits like the Carpenter at the Palacio Cerro Castillo, the presidential palace in Viña del Mar, has been working there since the 1st June 1992 and earns $478.304 a month.

If you want to check out who earns what in the Government of Chile, check out: http://www.presidencia.cl/transparencia/ (in Spanish)

For those that know Spanish, it's a part of the Gobierno Transparente Ley 20.285 – sobre acceso a la información pública.

On the local city council’s website I saw the signature of the Mayor that was responsible for the ‘Noise Police’ that tell us to turn down the decibels after they receive phone calls from the bitter granny that lives on the third floor nearby, and once she has run out of stones to throw at us. It’s not our fault she goes to bed before 10pm on a Friday night! It’s not even music just a dozen or so people talking! Anyway…

I could also find out who was contracted to supply emergency power to the traffic lights in the case of a power cut. The thing is, whenever the power goes out in the office, the traffic lights on the main street just in front of us also die. So much for the emergency power supply.

A lot more interesting is seeing the latest business permits in the suburb, the names of their company and what they do etc.

My only question is why are there so many stamps on the paperwork dated 17th of this Month. That is the Friday just gone by (the law came into force the Monday after). Was it a case of “Damn, we have to put something up online before we get our hands slapped” and to make it appear like they already had some transparent system already in place?

I wonder what other interesting things I can dig up.

Do you think this law will really make things more transparent in Chile?