Strategic Management for the Control and Administration of Public Assets in Ecuador

Abstract

The study analyzes the strategic management of public assets in Ecuador with the objective of diagnosing the structural weaknesses that affect control, transparency, and efficiency throughout the entire life cycle of state assets. It employs a qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive approach through a multiple-case design in five representative entities of the public sector: a sectoral ministry, a strategic public company, a decentralized autonomous provincial government or Category A municipality, and a security and defense institution. Interviews are conducted with high-level executives, and dichotomous surveys are applied to officials with direct responsibilities in asset administration. The results show nonexistent total coincidences and politically manipulated ones; inventories updated only at 28% and absence of a single registration system in 87%; exclusively corrective maintenance, corresponding to 80% of generalized personal use of assets, as well as opaque disposals represented by 77% absolute absence of effective sanctions. The work concludes that institutional fragmentation, the lack of traceability, and the culture of impunity constitute the structural causes of recurrent patrimonial losses. It calls for the immediate creation of a single, mandatory, interoperable national digital registration system, highlighting the urgency of normative reform and technologies to transition toward proactive management that guarantees the efficient use of state patrimony for the benefit of citizens.