Local officials attend conference “Cities without corruption – cities with future”

Representatives of all the city halls of district centers and the city councils from Moldova take part in the conference named “Cities without corruption – cities with future” held in Chisinau on April 14 and15. The conference is the first move within the Initiative “Anti-corruption transparency and strategies at local level” launched by the Local Public Administration Ministry (LPAM), with the support of the UN Development Program (UNDP), Info-Prim Neo reports. “Corruption is one of the biggest problems in Moldova,” the LPA Minister Valentin Guznac has said in his opening speech. The corruption’s major consequences imply losses of tax incomes, huge shadow economy, excessively harassing businesses, the minister said. In order to fight the scourge, he proposes four priorities: raising awareness, enhancing the transparency of public services, development the management of human resources and simplifying administrative procedures to improve public services. Valentin Guznac has also remarked that the reports of the civil society point out that the public servants are in the top of the corrupted officials. The program “Anti-corruption transparency and strategies at local level” pursues to support public leaders and managers to intervene in local administrations to prevent and combat corruption. The local functionaries and elected officials get familiar with practical tools helping them to reach their goals. Corruption is a cancer of society and an addiction-generating disease, says Ronald McLean-Abaroa, a World Bank expert and former mayor of the Bolivian capital La Paz. No wonder that Moldova is on the 111th place out of 163 states with high corruption perception index, he says, because Moldova is a country experiencing transition, and the corruption index is closely related to the level of a state’s development. “We’re poor, because we’re corrupt,” says Lilia Carasciuc, the executive-director of the Moldovan office of Transparency International. The higher the corruption level in a state, the less competitive it is both internally and externally and the less investment comes into the country, while the fiscal evasion and the losses in public procurements are the larger, Lilia Carasciuc explains. Transparency International’s researches show that people consider healthcare and education as the most corrupt, businesses point to customs, fiscal body and police, while people more familiar with the field points to public procurements and judiciary. Mayor of Soroca town Victor Sau maintains the mayors should elected from among businesspeople, not guided by material concerns in their work. At the same time, the Government should insure better social and material conditions for teachers and doctors, says Victor Sau, adding such efforts exceed the might of local administrations.