Municipal commission gives green light to draft decision on transparency of activity of local public authorities

The juridical commission for public order and activity of local public administration of the Chisinau Municipal Council has given green light to a draft decision on insurance of transparency and intensification of participation of citizens in the decision-making process. The draft aims to develop the participatory democracy, to ensure the transparency of activity of local public authorities and optimisation of the decision-making process, stipulates public debates and information of citizens about future draft decisions. According to the chief of the public relations service of the Chisinau City Hall, Petru Grozavu, this draft will encourage the democratic exercise and responsibility of municipal governance toward citizen. Both Constitution and the law on access to information dictated the need of such a normative document at municipal level long ago, though Moldova did not adopt a law on institutional transparency until now, he noted. Deputy chairman of the commission Alexandru Corduneanu told mass media that the implementation of the concept on transparency of decision-making process is impossible without an information portal. The Chisinau City Hall has a website at present, but it is not functional. The juridical commission has asked the public relations service to table a programme on information development of the Chisinau municipality, he added. The draft decision on decision transparency is based on experience of the Timisoara City Hall in the area, as well as on Romania’s law on decision transparency. City hall functionaries and municipal councillors attended an international seminar in Chisinau and Timisoara on transparent local governance in September and October 2005. The draft decision on decision transparency was discussed only within juridical commission for public order and activity of the local public administration of the Chisinau Municipal Council. The commission for culture has postponed the examination of this document twice because it could not hold sittings due to absence of councillors.