ADEPT points to shortcomings in ensuring decisional transparency by authorities

The institutions of the central public authorities commit mistakes in the process of ensuring decisional transparency on their websites. Most of the faults concern the insufficient argumentation of the necessity of drafting decisions. This area witnessed a negative dynamic compared with last year. The conclusions were formulated by the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT), which monitored 24 central public authorities, Info-Prim Neo reports. “We also established that the standards concerning the publication of announcements about the initiation of decision drafting are not respected. Many institutions do not publish the synthesis of the recommendations made by civil society and the annual reports on the devising of normative documents and do not indicate the draft decisions that are to be discussed at public consultations,” ADEPT program coordinator said Elena Prohnitski said in a news conference. The monitors analyzed how the regulations concerning the publication of information about the internal rules and the methods of informing about and taking part in the process of drafting and adopting decisions on websites are obeyed. They also followed when the announcements about the initiation of decision drafting and the organization of public consultations appear. Elena Prohnitski said that none of the monitored institutions managed to fully meet the set requirements. “Only two ministries published announcements about the organization of public consultations, when the deadline almost expired. Many institutions do not write the date when the announcements appeared,” she stated. ADEPT chairman Igor Botan said the monitoring performed between July 1 and December 31, 2011 focused on 220 draft decisions published on the websites of 24 central public authorities. “ADEPT aimed to contribute to ensuring good governance by increasing transparency in decision making and by involving the public in the formulation, promotion and implementation of decisions of general interest and impact,” he said, adding the people must know about the work done by the authorities. The monitoring was performed within the Strengthening Transparency in the Decision-Making Process in Moldova Project that is financially supported by East-Europe Foundation.