Restricting access to information triggers citizens' mistrust: Acces-info

There is a big difference between the statements and the policies promoted to ensure the freedom of speech and the access to information. The thing was found Friday, January 30, by the participants in a round table debating on a report on access to official information. The report has been compiled by Acces-info Center, Info-Prim Neo reports. Vasile Spinei, Acces-info's executive, pointed out as a main cause the discrepancy between big statements and miming of high-scale activities made by public institutions, and the reality.” “There are very many good laws appearing, with the expertise of the Council of Europe, but there lacks a mechanism of promoting juridical knowledge,” Vasile Spinei specified. Cornelia Cozonac, the president of the Journalistic Investigating Center, part to the expert group drafting the report, has highlighted that “we still have drawbacks in terms of the transparency of public institutions, which are reluctant when they are to speak about public money or corruption.” The experts showed themselves unhappy that the information is concentrated at press services of public entities. “When we ask for information from public servants, we're urged to call the press officers. The latter ones however give us but dry information that we cannot use,” Cornelia Cozonac says. Attending the round table, media representatives and public servants said the access to information was guaranteed by the clerk's responsibility and the citizen's motivation. Nicolae Ropot, an official of the Sangerei District Council, insisted on involving citizens in executing decisions made by authorities. The level of the access to official information is assessed by 2.4 points, on a scale from 0 to 5. This tells of a slight increase compared to quarter 3 of 2008 - 2.36, Q2 - 2.12 and Q1 - 2.09. The annual report on assessing the access to official information in Moldova in 2008 has been compiled within the Strengthening Civil Society Monitoring Capacity in Moldova (SCSMCM) Program, implemented by the Academy for Educational Development (AED) with technical assistance from the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX). The SCSMCM program is funded by the Millennium Challenges Corporation (MCC) and managed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) within the framework of the Country Threshold Program (CTP) for Moldova.