Insurance of transparency as fighting windmills

“Insurance of transparency and access to information is a fight with the windmill in our country,” the head of NGO “Sunbeam” Vasile Cioarec said during a roundtable meeting centering on the transparency and consultation of the public in decision making. The event was organized by the INRECO Conflict Resolution Institute. According to Vasile Cioarec, the communication between the local authorities and the civil society is defective. “For example, if we visit the Chisinau City Hall’s website and try to open the section with the City Council’s agenda of January 22 that includes 47 items, we see that no project is published,” Cioarec said. “Not the civil servants are to blame for the non-publication of the documents. It is the lack of will on the part of decision makers that sometimes refuse to provide information,” Vasile Cioarec said. The situation as regards the declaration of civil servants’ incomes is not better. “Only the income statement of the Mayor General is published on the City Hall’s website; the Ciocana district head’s office is working out this section of the website, and only the Centru district head’s office posted the income statements of the division heads,” the head of NGO “Sunbeam” said. The low interest of the local elected officials in the issue of transparency is confirmed by the absence of most of the representatives of the factions in the meeting, the AMN councilor Oleg Cernei said. All the factions of the CMC have been invited to the debate. Only representatives of the AMN and PPCD attended the meeting.