Balti, Cahul and Cimislia are the most transparent localities in the Republic of Moldova. This is the conclusion of the report "Transparency in local governance: between progress and involution", presented today, June 29, by the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul".
"The citizens of the Republic of Moldova need democratic, efficient institutions that can serve the public interest only to the extent that they show adherence to the values of the rule of law, and transparency and responsibility is like a turness sheet demonstrating the seriousness of intentions, their concrete plan to work for the public good. Moldova needs to invest much more in the modernization of rural space, local and regional development, which cannot be achieved if we do not treat the administrative autonomy as an effective right for local communities to self-govern, according to the competences and attributions recognized by the legislation and the European Charter of Local Self-Government. Today's event is a good opportunity to demonstrate live how we can stimulate healthy, fair competition between localities to attract more external resources and to re-launch local development engines for the benefit of local citizenship”, stated IDIS Director, Igor Munteanu.
In turn, Peter Tomášek, Development Cooperation Diplomat at Embassy of the Slovakia in Chisinau mentioned “I am glad that we can share our useful and successful experience in order to contribute to increasing the transparency of Moldovan authorities. And INEKO, together with its partners, has created really useful instruments that have obviously raised citizens' interest in civic involvement and the development of their communities".
Attending the event, INEKO Director, Peter Golias underlined: "I am pleased to note that the level of transparency has increased in many municipalities in Moldova, compared to the last year's ranking. Many local authorities have inspired and found the motivation to become more open to the public and not to leave space for corruption. As an example, the town of Balti, which we visited and improved considerably its position in the top of the most transparent municipalities".
The report, signed by expert Viorel Parvan, monitored the activity of local public administration in 60 territorial administrative units in the Republic of Moldova (40 cities and 20 largest villages / communes). Localities were evaluated and ranked in the following nine criteria of transparency: access to information, participation in decision-making, budgeting, public procurement, management of public property, professional ethics and conflict of interests, human resources, social services, investments, municipal companies and participation in companies. The maximum of the accrued points was 100 and the most transparent local public authorities are Balti (83.5 points), Cahul (56 points) and Cimislia (49 points).
"The comparative analysis for 2016 indicates for some local public administrations a progress towards 2015 in terms of ensuring access to public information and transparency in the activity of local government. Of course, cases of passivity in the opening of public data to citizens and their participation in the decision-making process have also been identified. If to make a general average of the points of transparency accumulated by the localities, we will notice a slight increase, in 2015 it was 23.6%, and in the year 2016 the average constituted 25.6%", considers Viorel Parvan.
According to the monitoring report, almost half of the local public authorities (27) do not have headings dedicated to decision-making transparency on their website. Webpages containing such headings are not filled in and do not contain the information required by law. And in 2016, 29 local public authorities of the analyzed ones did not elaborate, approved and informed the internal rules of information, consultation and participation in the process of drafting and adopting decisions. The best examples of access to information are the local public authorities in Balti, Falesti and Orhei. As regards participation in the decision-making process, only 27 local authorities held public consultations in 2016 for draft decisions. At the same time, only the municipal authorities in Chisinau, Balti and Orhei made public the Transparency Report.
With regard to public procurement, 23 public local authorities have partially publicized public procurement announcements. Also, only Balti Town Hall has published some public procurement contracts on the web in 2016. The most transparent in drafting and executing the budget are Cimislia, Falesti and Cahul.
The author notes that although 23 local authorities have made public on the Mayor's CV on the website, most localities (57) do not bring to the attention of citizens the declarations of income and property of local elected representatives.
The report "Transparency in local governance: between progress and involution" also shows that 14 local public authorities made public vacancies available on the web page in 2016 and only one local public authority, namely Balti municipality published the minutes of candidates 'selection board for the vacant position, including commission evaluation and applicants' rankings.
Other chapters analyzed are "investments" and "management of public assets ", where data show a less favorable trend. Thus, only seven localities publish on the web site information on projects managed by the local government. At the same time, 49 local public authorities do not publish announcements regarding the sale / lease / lease of local public goods. However, the best examples of transparency in the management of public property are the local public authorities in Balti and Cricova.
"A fully transparent local administration implies that public authorities must guarantee free access to information and ensure that citizens are properly informed on a timely basis", says Viorel Parvan.
At the June 29th conference on "Transparency and responsibility of local authorities through anti-Corruption actions" the public finance expert, Angela Secrieru, communicated the results of the local public revenue assessment of the 50 largest cities and villages in Moldova compiled in a report. According to her, local public administrations in the Republic of Moldova have few sources of income compared to many other local governments around the world. The budgets of the administrative-territorial units have insufficient financial potential and the local economies face the inability to generate their own revenues in the necessary volume.
The event was attended by Transparency International experts from Slovakia who shared their experience in the field. Also, the main conclusions of the Local Business Development Index were presented. The Index, signed by Liubomir Chiriac, Tatiana Lariusin and Ion Butmalai, aims to analyze the competitive advantages and disadvantages of Moldovan regions.
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Top of the most transparent municipalities in the Republic of Moldova can be found on the open data portal: http://localtransparency.viitorul.org/.
The event was held within the project “Transparent, financially sound and competitive municipalities in Moldova” which is implemented by the Institute for Economic and Social Reforms (INEKO) in partnership with IDIS “Viitorul”, with the support of the SlovakAid and the US Embassy to Moldova. The project aims to increase the financial accountability of local governments in 50 municipalities throughout Moldova.
For details, contact Ana – Maria Veverita: ana.veverita@viitorul.org or at phone number (0 22) 221844
