International Right to Know Day
This years 28 September, International Right to Know Day, we welcomed in Serbia in a much better mood than in previous year. Namely, in one of the several meetings that were dedicated to the right to access to information, representatives of the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-governance implied that the Law won’t be changed afterall, so that the companies in state ownership will not be excluded from the control of the public. Instead, the possibility remains that such enterprises deny access to information if the interest for guarding the business secret prevail over the right of public to know, if they properly elaborate their decision and Commissioner agrees with their decision during the complaining process.
Certainly, we cannot be sure of whether the danger is gone as long as the final text of the amendments remains unknown. Special cautiousness is necessary with the definition of the term of authority organ, not to leave out any legal person that manages the public property. Among other, changes should be such to comprehend dependent companies (e. g. companies established by EPS and other public enterprises) and all other subjects in majority state ownership. It should also comprehend companies where state is the minority owner, but owns the "control package" of bonds, where company has been given public property of large value for use or guarantees for the credits.
News
Whistleblower from Krušik
Faith of potential criminal procedure against whistleblower from „Krušik“ for „revealing of business secret“ depends on several elements. First from the fact on whether the data he provided to the press even had a status of „business secret“. Whether, in other words, that was the information with commercial value because…
... detaljnije ...Report of the Coalition prEUgovor about the progress of Serbia in chapters 23 and 24
Coalition prEUgovor ascertained in the latest report on fulfilling of criteria for chapters 23 and 24 that tendency of degrading continues, that authorities’ only concern is whether the opposition will boycott the elections, therefore functioning of institutions, rule of law and establishing of social consensus are not the priorities. The summary…
... detaljnije ...Statement on donations for sport teams – confessing the abuse of public resources
Statement of the Minister of Finances that since 2014 by today two of the largest football and basketball equips „received from the state“ around 4,7 billion of RSD, represents confession that donations were accompanied by the abuse of official post or trading with influence. According to this statement, that was not…
... detaljnije ...Minister announced, ministry doesn’t know what he is talking about
Minister of Finances Siniša Mali stated in April 2019 that study of justification of constructing the national football stadium will be finalized by 10 May 2019. TS requested from the Ministry of Finances by the beginning of May information–to whom, how, in which procedure was entrusted drafting of study, copy…
... detaljnije ...Making public debate truly public
Transparency Serbia considers as inappropriate that Ministries’ and Government’s group for promotion of election process hasn’t made any effort to enable wider public and stakeholders to participate public debate on changes of three laws, and especially the media. Public debate on changes of the Law on Anticorruption Agency, on public enterprises…
... detaljnije ...Changes of the Law on Financing Political Activities
Transparency Serbia (official chapter of Transparency International) finds it useful that draft of amendments to the Law on Financing Political Activities regulates duty of Anticorruption Agency to proceed by complaints during the election campaign in five days deadline, to determine whether there have been violations of regulations and to publish…
... detaljnije ...International Right to Know Day
This years 28 September, International Right to Know Day, we welcomed in Serbia in a much better mood than in previous year. Namely, in one of the several meetings that were dedicated to the right to access to information, representatives of the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-governance implied…
... detaljnije ...Problem of the "officials’ campaigns" remains unresolved
Transparency Serbia (official chapter of Transparency International) emphasizes that interpretations that adoption of the Conclusion of the Government, prohibited or limited "officials’ campaigns",are wrong. More strict regulations could be introduced only with Law, and the chances to do so, on the basis of specific proposals of the amendments formulated by…
... detaljnije ...Final account
Transparency Serbia pointed out that delivering of final budget account to the NA, which has finally happened after more than four years, is only one of the things that Ministry of Finances and the Government had to do in order to make the budget related proceedings more transparent and accountable. According to…
... detaljnije ...Too much secrecy of data in public enterprises
Since the December last year Transparency Serbia monitors implementation of the Law on free Access to Information and announced changes of that Law. Draft changes and amendments of the Law presented by the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-government last year, envisaged significant narrowing the right to free access…
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Prosecution should react to statements on political blackmail of the employed in the grammar school
Transparency Serbia pointed out to supreme public prosecution in Belgrade–special department for curbing corruption to media statements about blackmailing of employees in in grammar school in BelaCrkva to perform duties beneficial to political party if they wish to save their jobs. Beta news agency published information from the Portal Belocrkvanews which, if turned out…
... detaljnije ...What is the value of the land of "Belgrade waterfront"?
News on sales of the construction land "MarinaDorćol", next to the bank of Danubeprovides excellent insight into proportion of damage that Belgrade and Serbia suffered by signing of contract for the project "Belgrade Waterfront". According to the news, 4 hectare of land next to the river bank, in which 76.000 "of squares…
... detaljnije ...Inviting of OSCE to control the elections and what should actually be requested from them
News about President of working group for cooperation with OSCE Nebojša Stefanović, inviting for monitoring of upcoming elections in Serbia, and "asked for a meeting in which all details of future cooperation would be discussed", doesn’t say yet anything about whether the Government of Serbia has the intention to ask…
... detaljnije ...TS presented results of research and ranking LTI 2019
Transparency Serbia presented results of research and ranking of all municipalities and cities in Serbia - LTI 2019. The most transparent in Serbia are Plandište with index 67 and Novi Pazar and Paraćin with 66, while average index for the complete territory of Serbia is 40. The largest challenge to increasing…
... detaljnije ...What will working group of the Government monitor, and what should it do
News about adoption of the decision about establishing of working group for cooperation with OSCE by the Government on its „last sitting“, „whose task is to follow implementation of recommendations of this organization for improving of electoral procedure“, was neither published in the report from the sitting of the Government from…
... detaljnije ...Conditions for elections, president in the campaign, media – what is not being mentioned (2)
By commenting the decision of several opposition parties to boycott the elections, Prime-Minister, Ana Brnabić, besides the thesis legitimately used in political battle between authorities and opposition, stated also couple of thesis or missed to mention several facts that deserve a comment in regards to rule of law and democracy in Serbia. Thereby…
... detaljnije ...RAEM reports – what is their legal obligation
Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media, or person who writes press releases on their behalf and answers to media (CINS, Politika, Danas) tried hard in the past few days to prove that no secret reports on monitoring of broadcasters, during the election campaign in 2016, existed. When we exclude…
... detaljnije ...Presentation of Local Transparency Index - LTI 2019
On September 6, 2019, the United States Agency for International Development and Transparency Serbia (TS)will present the 2019 Local Transparency Index. TS used 95 indicators to evaluate and rank the transparency of all municipalities and cities in Serbia. We invite the media to a press conference on September 6, 2019…
... detaljnije ...Partnership with expected outcome
One of the political opponents of the current government indicated that just finalized choice of strategic partner for „Morava koridor“ was not transparent. It is more likely to say that the Government of Serbia highly transparentlylead the process to the outcome with only one bid on the table. National Assembly in the July…
... detaljnije ...Belgrade among least transparent capitals in Europe
Research by the Transparency International chapters. covering 26 European capitals, shows Belgrade is among the least transparent cities. The capitals were tested based on 14 indicators, including the access to information about the decision-making process, money spending, public procurement and ethic rules. The researchers looked for data and documents for 12 of…
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How much is this road?
After the public became justifiably upset with the fact that Government of Serbia agreed on construction of high-way from New Belgrade to Surčin by the price of around 9 million of euros per one kilometer, public enterprise „Putevi Srbije“ provided some explanation. Those explanations although useful, are insufficient. It is…
... detaljnije ...Recommendations of ODIHR, election conditions and "working group of the Government"
For an ignorant reader news from the meeting of the representatives of the Government of Serbia and Mission of OSCE it may look like Serbia continuously works on implementation of recommendations of international organizations that deal with election conditions. The truth, at least until now, is different. Statement of the Prime-minister that…
... detaljnije ...Special specifications
Ministry of Interior continues to hide data about the money of the citizens that it spends on purchase of vehicles. After hiding of data on the price of patrol vehicles, now the data about the price of 60 “marica”, 12 fire-department and eight medical vehicles remains hidden. Like in previous “secret”…
... detaljnije ...Can members of Parliament be charged with criminal offenses without arguments and consequences
Charges made by members of Parliament against citizens, political opponents, former and current officials remain unresponsive, even though they relate to criminal offenses. As a result, those who are innocently accused remain permanently slandered. Likewise, the possible guilt remains unspecified. Some members of Government are facing this problem too, asking the prosecution…
... detaljnije ...Contractor Gifts
Data from the “Krik” story, according to which one of the biggest contractors in “Belgrade Waterfronts” gave gifts to the brother of the former Belgrade mayor, create suspicion of corruption. It is widely known that public procurementsare often subject of corruption and backlash to decision makers, even when there is open…
... detaljnije ...Subway Construction: secret memoranda, mysterious report and some public procurement violation
From the whole story of the construction of the Belgrade subway so far, it can be concluded that the companies from China and France will be involved in the work, that the source of financing is not yet known and that the provisions of the Law on Public Procurement and…
... detaljnije ...Serbia’s ruling SNS MP denies Constitutional rights to journalists and NGOs
We call on the Government and Parliament to stop using institutions for a showdown with independent media and organisations on the same day when Serbia signed a joint statement obliging itself to protect media freedom. The news desks of CINS, BIRN, Isinomer, N1 TV, Vreme weekly, and NGOs Transparency Serbia and…
... detaljnije ...Hiding information on state-owned enterprises
The danger with the adoption of changes to the Law on Free Access to Information, which envisages that state-owned enterprises are excluded from the obligation to provide data, is illustrated by the example with the Port of Novi Sad. As early as March 2019, TS commented on developments regarding the privatization…
... detaljnije ...Important statement of the Misdemeanor Court
The Misdemeanor Appellate Court stated that the association is authorized to initiate misdemeanor proceedings for denying the right of access to information. This view is significant because, in situations where the authorities ignore the requests of the claimants, in addition to lodging a complaint to the Commissioner, this additional tool can…
... detaljnije ...Fiscal Strategy Draft (almost) on time
For the first time since 2011, the Ministry of Finance prepared the Fiscal Strategy, a document that by law precedes the drafting of the budget for the next year before the budget itself is made. Although practice showed that the Government and the Parliament often deviated from these three-year planning documents…
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