Balti, Cimislia, Cahul most transparent settlements of Moldova - study

Chisinau, 9 November /MOLDPRES/ - The cities of Balti, Cimislia and Cahul are the most transparent settlements of Moldova and Straseni, Falesti and Cahul are the most transparent districts from Moldova in 2018, for which they have been awarded prizes. A ranking of the most open local public authorities, made by the Viitorul Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS), along with partners from Slovakia, was presented at a news conference on 8 November.     

Those 60 settlements (40 cities/towns and 20 biggest villages), as well as 32 district councils were assessed based on the following nine transparency criteria: access to information, participation in the decision-making process, budgetary process, organization and holding of public procurements, public property management, conflict of interests, human resources, social services and district investments. The maximum number of points for the administration of a local public authority is 100 points. Thus, the most transparent settlements are the Balti municipality (82 per cent), Cimislia town (62 points) and Cahul city (62 points). At the same time, the most transparent second-level local public authorities are the district councils from Straseni (78 points), Falesti (64 points) and Cahul (58 points).    

„During three years, we have had a nice cooperation with partners from Slovakia and we have learned a lot on this period. We have used to the methodology of identifying the most transparent local authorities and we learned the instruments of measuring the financial sustainability. Thus, we made a step forward for strengthening the local public authorities of Moldova,” the IDIS Viitorul executive director, Liubomir Chiriac, said.    

In the context, a representative of Slovakia’s Embassy in Moldova, Maroš Kramár, said that this cooperation brought positive results in form of prizes for the most open local public authorities. “More thanks belong to the municipalities which are part of the project and tried to be more transparent for the needs of their citizens. We want the most open authorities to become model for the other settlements of Moldova,” the Slovakian diplomat noted.  

The assessment of the public administrations from Moldova takes place within an initiative titled, Promotion of transparency and financial sustainability of the regional policies, state enterprises and local authorities of Moldova, implemented by IDIS Viitorul, in partnership with the Institute for Economic and Social Reforms from Slovakia (INEKO). The initiative is financially backed the Slovakian Official Development Assistance Programme (SlovakAid) and is aimed at improving the transparency and financial stability of local public authorities and state enterprises of Moldova through transfer of know-how from similar projects successfully implemented in Slovakia.   

„The goal of our initiative was to improve the level of authorities’ openness to citizens and, after three years, we can notice a significant progress, which represents a good sign. I am happy to see that the results of the monitoring of the local transparency in Moldova are positive and the authorities have become more transparent,” INEKO director Peter Golias said.  

(Reporter L. Grubii, editor A. Raileanu)