Think-tank recommends to re-establish link between local and central public administrations

The IDIS „Viitorul” think-tank recommends to re-establish the link between the central and local public administrations by legalizing the institution of the Government's representatives in the territory. The recommendations are contained in a research called „The Decentralization Effects: the Role of the Government's Representative in Administrative-Territorial Units,” launched on Thursday, Info-Prim Neo reports. An expert with IDIS Viitorul, Victor Popa, the author of the study, says Moldova does not have a legal frame to stipulate the central power's competence in territories. That is why, interference into the local powers' work often happens. Since 1991, a number of models of local government have been tested, but the political factor has intervened every now and then which has conduced to excessive tutelage of the local administrations for political purposes. The IDIS experts say every time, when the MPs tried to pass a law on the administrative decentralization, the same mistakes have been made, more because of political motives, than of the citizens' interests. In passing the laws on the local administrations' powers, the Parliament neglected their full and exclusive character. It did not understand the relation among the local, district and national interests, which should determine the kind and quantity of the powers attributed to each authority. Another shortcoming of the law is the fact that many rights and powers of the district and local authorities were mixed up, doubled or attributed formally, leaving a wide room to the central authorities to maneuver. Victor Popa says often the conflict of interests between the central and local authorities is visible when there are differences of political color between the district president and the local council. A possible legal frame providing clear competences to the local administrative control directions would prevent the creation of a bureaucratic system blocking the work of the local authorities. IDIS Viitorul's research recommends to make more efficient the government's institution in the territory by creating a new structure of administrative-territorial organization, which would allow to concentrate the material and financial resources to develop modern district centers. This is the only way to provide qualitative services to citizens, to attain stability at the institutional level, to clarify the decision-making process and to improve the cooperation between the local and central authorities, said Igor Munteanu, IDIS Viitorul's executive.