Recently, Promo-LEX Association published the Report on transparency in the activity of the local public authorities of the second level and ATU Gagauzia in the second half of 2017. The goal of the research is to help these be more open to the people. Promo-LEX expert Igor Bucataru said the local authorities have yet a lot to do, but there is a tendency towards particular progress compared with the first half of the previous year.
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– Mister Bucataru, in the course of April Promo-LEX will present the conclusions of its report on the work of the local public authorities. How many administrative units are coveted and how did you conduct the monitoring?
– Promo-LEX is one of the few nongovernmental organizations that follow the openness of local authorities to people. We have mainly monitored transparency in the decision-making process in 35 administrative authorities of the country: local councils, municipal councils of Balti and Chisinau and the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia. It is huge work done by the central team and the Association’s offices all over the county. We now produced the second report of the five planned. For the purpose, the observers of Promo-LEX attended meetings of local elected officials in the 35 monitored units. We analyzed the laws, websites of the local authorities and checked how these respond to petitioners’ letters.
– Have you also discussed with those who should feel the effect of transparency in the local administration – the citizens?
– Not only with the citizens, but also with the press, with nongovernmental organizations and business entities from all over the country. There were over 100 interested parties that we interviewed.
– To begin with the positive side of things, in what areas did the local authorities improve decisional transparency?
– The level of transparency is yet insufficient, but I would like to say that we saw a positive tendency in the decisional transparency of the local public authorities compared with the data of the first report. Thus, progress has been made and the results deserve to be encouraged and followed as a model. In this regard, we noticed that over 30% of the meetings are broadcast live. Many of the local public authorities published the budget and the draft budget and public procurement plans on their website. We also determined that the citizens used the social networking sites two times more often than in the first half of last year to inform themselves about the work done by the local authorities. Those who will read the report will also learn about other efforts made by the local public authorities, which deserve to be encouraged. However, despite the noticed positive tendencies, the general situation needs to be substantially improved.
– Did Promo-LEX devote attention to the spending of public funds?
– Surely, the financial subject is topical and, consequently, found reflection in the report. More exactly, we focused on the observance of the law when signing public procurement contacts. Even if the law obliges to ensure competition in public procurement, our calculations show that the value of the contracts signed with the local authorities as a result of tender contests that involved only one participant was of about 145 million lei for the second half of last year. Undoubtedly, this fact arouses concern in the current conditions of development of the local economy, even if almost half of the contracts were signed with the participation of four and more competitors.
– What did the Association find as regards the administrative resources? Are these used appropriately by the local authorities?
– We have a new chapter that centered on the possible abusive use of the administrative resources by the local authorities, but a large part of the local elected officials refused to answer the questions on the issue. Surely, this state of affairs generates many questions.
– How can this position be explained?
– The reasons for the refusals weren’t made known by the local elected officials. Instead, a considerable number of these said they were subject to pressure to be made to take particular decisions – in over 20% of the cases – and also that they were threatened with criminal cases or the loss of the job.
– Do you think that this type of pressure on local elected officials can attract the attention of the National Anticorruption Center or other competent authorities?
– Certainly, the competent authorities should not tolerate such situations. But those who provided us with such information asked for anonymity. We should also not neglect the fact that a lot of work is yet to be done as regards the measures to prevent corruption by engaging the citizens. Therefore, Promo-LEX considers the citizens cannot be deprived of the possibility of using this instrument for reporting cases of corruption. For example, even if the law obliges the local authorities to post the anticorruption phone number on their website, only four of the 35 local authorities observed this legal requirement.
– Did you also notice other communication-related problems between the local authorities and the citizens?
– Yes. Besides the fact that the websites do not contain a large part of the information needed by citizens, the situation as regards the letters sent by the people is also not better. One third of those who asked for particular information from the local authorities remained unanswered. So, in this regard the authorities didn’t pass the proper communication test.
– What should the local authorities do to ensure better transparency in relation to the citizens?
– I don’t think there is a universal or a magical solution that would bring about improvements overnight. But the most serious concern resides in the “root” of these shortcomings in decisional transparency. More exactly, this is a system problem that refers to the uncertainty related to the state policy in relation to the local authorities, for example the provision of financial resources for the local authorities to fulfill their duties and the sustainability of the current administrative-territorial organization. I refer to the future of districts.
– Were the local authorities willing to discuss the subjects from the nine chapters of the report with Promo-LEX?
– Most of these were ready to cooperate with Promo-LEX. What is more, in April we will present the report to those from the local public authorities, with all the recommendations included, and will answer their questions. We do this to encourage the local authorities to ensure transparency in the decision-making process so that the citizens form part of the plans and actions that refer to them directly, at their place of residence.
