Journalists, ordinary people and representatives of civil society during nine months will monitor how efficiently the public money is used in the municipalities of Balti and Chisinau. The monitoring is conducted by the Independent Press Association (API) within the Monitoring the Use of Public Money in Chisinau and Balti Project, Info-Prim Neo reports. API executive director Petru Macovei told a news conference that the monitoring will start on June 1. He said the campaign is not political in character. “The monitoring was planned to start earlier, but we decided to postpone it so as not to be accused by the election runners. Our aim is not to criticize the local authorities, but we will do so if they do not respect the law and violate the people’s rights,” said Petru Macovei. Expert consultant of the project Galina Colun, head of the Orhei Financing Division, said the local public authorities are obliged to ensure the correct informing of the people about the public affairs and the transparency of the meetings of the special commissions, and to make public the decisions concerning the approval of the budget. The project launched by the API is a component of the media campaign “Public money should be accounted for!”, which has been carried out in a number of towns of Moldova during the last few years. Galina Colun said they established that the authorities not always use the money in the correct way and for the right purpose. “As a result of the monitoring, the local public authorities became more responsible and careful when distributing the money,” she stated. Vasile Cioarec, coordinator of the monitoring group in Chisinau, said the goal of the project is to see how the public authorities fulfill their duties. “We will follow how the public money is managed and spent. We will talk to those who organized tender contests and those who took part in them to see if the legislation was observed,” he said. Another purpose of the project is to encourage the people to take part in the monitoring process. “We want the people to see where the money comes from and where it goes. We do not replace the investigation bodies and will not perform researches. We will look at this process through the people’s eyes,” said Vasile Cioarec. Monitoring reports will be made public in news conferences every three months. The API’s partners in implementing the project are: the national public broadcaster “Teleradio-Moldova”, the paper “Ziarul de Garda”, the National Center for NGO Assistance and Information of Moldova “Contact”, the Balti paper “SP”, and the Balti-based association “Ozon”. The project is financially supported by Soros Foundation Moldova.