Activity Type: Monitoring

Conflict of Interests and Corruption in the Public Administration

Monitoring of the implementation of the law on conflict of interest focusing on particular cases including publishing the cases, taking part in the administrative procedures, court rulings and involving media into the coverage of the issues and cases. Monitoring targeted mainly deputies and senators – how they comply with the obligaton to publish all gainful activities and incomes. A substantial part was cooperation with the media (assisting them with publishing a list of those who did not comply every year). The organization also provided support to the media and background information on the interpretation of the law. Regular press conferences took place, later on in the Senate. The project changed the culture connected to the publishing of the incomes, related to the law on the conflict of interests and raised awareness of the media on the issue; after the termination of the project, the media keep continuing monitoring the obligation to comply. In the third year of running project (2004), all deputies and senators complied. The only shortcomming would be the focus on the parliamentary level only due to the capacity of the organization.

Enforcement of the individual liability of public officials at the local level

A project monitoring the praxis of enforcement of individual public officials´ liability for the damages made by their illegal decisions; the research monitored the two types of penalites – those vested by the Office for Protection of competition and expenses of court cases related to ill-formulated public contracts tenders. On the basis of research findings the draft law amendments are being prepapared in 2009.

Fair-Play Database: internet database monitoring relations and links bewteen the public officials and public finances (conflict of interest)

The database served also as a pre-elections tool focusing on political sponsorship and potential political corruption. The database proved to be demanding in terms of actualization (the original idea that citizens would contribute after being checked by the AWC did not work) and management. The project was effective at the level of top politicians (sponsorship of political parties, public officials at the Prague Town Hall, top politicians), at the regional and local level, there was a different millieu and different relations among the actors. The database is still online, covering the top politicans only due to limited capacities of the organisation.The journalists used the database as the entry point for finding new cases. The project template was copied by the city of Lanškroun that developed its own database of local representatives and public officials.

Intrastate Offset

Project aiming at involvement of particular regional socio-economic conditions as a criterion within the public procurement and public contracting tenders when the companies from disadvatnaged regions would receive additional points within the tender evaluation. The project was implemented in cooperation with a businessman from one of the Czech disadvantaged regions (Jesenicko). The seminars on the method took place and an agreement with Ministry of Defence on including the new criterion was reached.

Public procurement City of Zagreb – Financial Management Policy Analysis project

The objective of the project was improving transparency and accountability of the City of Zagreb business dealings – i.e. transparency of all departments within the City of Zagreb) and establishing new and/or to improve the existing mechanisms of independent and accurate control of financial management related processes.

Against Corruption

To support in the discovery and identification of the cases of corruption in the judiciary system in the southern cities of the country, as well as the encouragement of the journalists and of the public in the denunciation of these cases on the media and to the specialized state institutions.

Mutual trust for better governance

The project aimed at improving public trust in the administration at local and regional levels by increasing transparency and monitoring capacity of the administration. The project sought to promote the practices of good governance through the partnership between the civil society organizations and the municipal administration. Some of its main activities included: 1. survey assessing the transparency of the local and regional administrations; 2. public opinion survey for the identification of the main deficiencies of the targeted administrations; 3. realization of educational seminars and round tables; 4. development and publication of analysis with recommendations on the topic: “mutual trust – a barometer for good governance””; 5. activities for information and publicity.”

Corruption Research Centre

This is an academic research institute within the Corvinus University of Budapest where the scholars are not only doing academic work but actively engaging in promoting their findings, collaborating with other NGOs (e.g. Energy Control Project, TI-HU), and seeking media coverage of uncovered corrupt cases.

Building a Political Integrity Network in Southeastern Europe (SEEIN)

The overarching goal of the project was to promote transparency in the electoral process in Southeastern Europe and the accountability of elected officials. The specific objective was to assist civil society in Southeastern Europe in building effective anti-corruption coalitions based on the models, skills, and experience of the Romanian Coalition for a Clean Parliament (RCCP). The main activities of the project were to organize a regional conference to share experience on and discuss the effective solutions to fight political corruption, to set up a regional network of NGOs willing to engage in developing activities to fight political corruption, and to assist partner organizations in developing their own clean parliament coalitions.
SAR organized the regional conference on the creation of the East European Integrity Network (EEIN) during October 12-15, 2006. The conference attracted the participation of NGO representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine, as well as representatives of the World Bank, Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), European Parliament, Stability Pact.

Monitoring county councils on conflicts of interests and incompatibilities (2008)

This project proposal aimed at addressing the issue of the fight against corruption by the civil society after accession, with a particular focus on conflicts of interests and incompatibilities.

Conflicts of interest and incompatibilities lie at the heart of corruption as the latter is based on the infringement of the public interests and of the requirements of public office for goals regarding private interests and private positions.

Members of 9 local county councils and 32 presidents of local county councils were scrutinized for conflicts of interests and incompatibilities. At the end of the project, a report was created underlining the local administration corruption cases. The project had an advocacy component aimed at correcting the loopholes in the legislation or in the enforcement of the law.

The purpose of the project  was to monitor officials from a number of county councils and the presidents of all county councils in relation to incompatibilities and conflicts of interests. A total of 315 county council members from 9 counties were monitored on the two aspects, out of which 31 did not meet the integrity criteria. The situation of county council presidents was also assessed, and in 15 out of the 42 cases the integrity criteria were not met.
This project was continued before the first direct election of county council presidents, when 150 candidates were verified using the criteria designed for the Coalition for Clean Government project (namely, on corruption, conflicts of interests, political migration and collaboration with the secret police before 1989). Out of these, 54 were included on a “black list” for not meeting the integrity requirements imposed. In 9 of the counties, candidates appearing on the list of the Coalition lost the elections, even though they were considered favorites in the polls made public during the campaign. These 9 counties were Bihor, Bistrita-Nasaud, Botosani, Cluj, Galati, Giurgiu, Mehedinti, Timis si Tulcea.

Coalition for a Clean Parliament 2004

Alegeri locale şi generale

On the occasion of the legislative and presidential elections in November and December 2004, Romanian civil society organized itself for the first time into a broad coalition for integrity in politics: the Coalition for a Clean Parliament (CCP). Frustrated by the government’s lack of effectiveness in fighting large-scale corruption, civil society took matters into its own hands.

The CCP first determined the criteria that would make a candidate unfit for a clean parliament. These criteria were: 1) having repeatedly shifted from one political party to another in search of personal profit; 2) having been accused of corruption on the basis of published and verifiable evidence; 3) having been exposed as an agent of the Securitate (Ceauşescu’s former secret service); 4) being the owner of a private firm with important tax arrears to the state budget; 5) being unable to account for the discrepancy between one’s officially stated assets and one’s income; 6) turning a profit from conflicts of interest involving one’s public position. The second step was to discuss these criteria with the leadership of the political parties represented in the Parliament. The most important ones—the Social Democratic Party/Humanist Party of Romania coalition (PSD/PUR), the Justice and Truth Alliance (DA), and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR)—agreed with the criteria and the process that we had designed, and they publicly announced their support for the CCP’s campaign.

Our third step was to gather information about the candidates of these parties. We collected material published in the press over the years and researched the websites of various public authorities in charge of financial and commercial matters. Then we double-checked our information. Our fourth step was to draw up lists of those candidates who met one or more of the agreed-upon criteria for being unfit to hold a seat in the future Parliament. The resulting “black lists”” were then sent to the political parties, with the request that they re-examine each case and decide whether to withdraw the candidate in question.

The CCP also offered to analyze any cases where individual candidates contested its findings. Step five consisted of the withdrawal by the political parties of significant numbers of their initial candidates. Some of the candidates appealed to the CCP, which approved or rejected their appeals and adjusted its lists accordingly. Our last step was to release the final CCP black lists in the form of nearly two million flyers, distributed in most of the 41 counties of Romania.

Coalition partners:

  • Agentia de Monitorizare a Presei – Academia Catavencu
  • Fundatia Freedom House
  • Centrul pentru Jurnalism Independent
  • Fundatia Dialog Social
  • Asociatia Pro Democratia
  • Alianta Civica
  • Asociatia pentru Apararea Drepturilor Omului in Romania – Comitetul Helsinki
  • Asociatia Revolutionarilor fara Privilegii
  • Liga Romana de Presa
  • Asociatia Studentilor la Facultatea de Stiinte Politice”

Coalition for Clean Universities

The CCU project was created as an exercise of watchdog and benchmarking, meant to give a complete image of the academic integrity in Romania.

The project developed an integrity ranking for Romanian state universities by applying an already tested methodology was used in a pilot phase of the same project (October 2007-May 2008, funded by a MATRA-KAP Grant of the Embassy of Netherlands in Bucharest).

External evaluators were selected for monitoring the integrity and transparency of the universities. The project started by mapping out the problems of integrity that exist in the Romanian higher education system, and classified them by categories.

  • the administrative transparency and probity – the publication of accounting documents; publishing income declarations and declarations of interests and those reflecting the status of not being involved in the communist political police; access to public records on acquisitions;
  • academic fairness – plagiarism, performance in research, academic unfolding process;
  • quality of governance – nepotism, involvement of students in decision making, usage of financial grants, filling teaching positions;
  • financial management – discretionary expenditure, managing public acquisitions processes.
  • 42 state universities were evaluated, out of a total of 56, during 3 months. At the end of this programme, the Coalition published the Integrity ranking of Romanian Universities.

The project received the support of the main stakeholders: The Ministry of Education, Research and Youth, Students’ Organisations (ANOSR), Trade Union (Alma Mater), The National Agency for Quality Evaluation in Higher Education (ARACIS), educational NGOs.
The Coalition for Clean Universities is composed of the following:

  • Centre for Independent Journalism (CJI),
  • Pro Democracy Association (APD),
  • Euroregional Centre for Democracy (CED),
  • National Association of Students Organizations from Romania (ANOSR),
  • The Group for Reform in Universities (GRU)
  • Group for Social Dialogue (GDS)
  • Romanian Academic Society (SAR)
  • University Solidarity Association (SU)
  • EduCer Association (EduCer)
  • Ad-Astra Association (Ad Astra)
  • Romanian Society of Political Science (SRSP)
  • FAR Association (FAR)
  • New Europe College Foundation (NEC)

Test Case for Performance and Transparency in the Local Public Admininistration: Property Restitution (2007-2008)

Beyond the legal details of the restitution process, two characteristics define Romania as an unique state in the Central and Eastern Europa:

  • indecision regarding compensations, in nature or equivalent, so that successive laws, produced and implemented for more than a decade, created confusion and overlapped rights
  • Large-scale abuse at local and central levels, favored by laws with loopholes and irregular judicial practice, visible through the huge discrepancies among restitution indicators, from one county to another

SAR initiated the first analysis with numeric indicators regarding the situation of restitutions, which shows who is at fault and why.

The scope of the project was the improvement of capacities for the local public administration towards implementing public policies.

The specific objective was to evaluate the situation for three indicators: performance, transparency and responsiveness by utilizing a test-case applied at a national level.

Starting from the evaluation, SAR identified and promoted the best modalities to increase the local capacity in relation to the three aspects, through consultation and advocacy.

Activities:

  1. Evaluating the local administration through a test-case. The activity included documentation and data collection, through interviews, data analysis and interpretation and publishing the report
  2. Round table for consulting stakeholders
  3. Advocacy activities for promoting the recommendations: preparing the activity, meetings with key decision factors, workshop, disseminating publications, disseminating results to mass media

Partners

APADOR-CH

Implementation period: December 2007 – September 2008

 

The Coalition for Clean Government

The initiative continued the work of the successful Coalition for a Clean Parliament. The members of the CCP decided to continue the monitoring of the public arena creating a Coalition for a Clean Government bringing up new issues and new approaches:

  • Declarations of wealth and interests – In the spring of 2005, SAR together with other members of the coalition argued for the improvement of the declarations of wealth and interest especially for high-level civil servants and dignitaries. SAR participated in several discussions and got involved in a working group created for drafting of new forms for the declarations of wealth and interest that would enable the public scrutiny of the wealth and interests of politicians and public servants. The effects of the new legislation were visible. Journalists used these instruments as means to monitor, identify and signaled existing irregularities in the 2005-2006 declarations. Furthermore the Prosecutors Office has also started investigations on these issues. All these indicate a better fit of this format and transformed it into an effective instrument. However six members of Parliament have initiated a new law attempting to replace again the established format with a vague and less detailed one. Unfortunately the law received tacit approval in the Senat in mid February 2006 but due to the critical stance taken by SAR representatives in the media, the Social-Democratic Party expressed their opposition to the project and the initiators (members of SDP) have spoken about the withdrawal of their proposal.
  • Increase transparency in public acquisitions – the coalition has addressed the issues of transparentization of public contracts. In October 2005 sixteen organizations made a public appeal for the legal endorsement of the principle that any contract of public acquisition, public-private partnership, concession, privatization etc should become automatically public from the moment of its signature, excluding thus any confidentiality clauses. The Government was opened to NGOs proposal and formed a working group, inviting SAR and other NGOs to participate. The working group has already drafted changes of the legislation that not only complies with the European acquis, but set even higher standards and it might become a model of transparency in public acquisitions. The project is now on the table of the Government to decide on the most appropriate procedure for approval.
  • Support anti-corruption policies – the efficiency of the anti-corruption fight was one of the most critical issues for the European integration of Romania. In December 2004, the Brussels European Council decided the conclusion of the accession negotiations with Romania but included specific safeguard clauses that would allow the postponement of the date of accession with a year. anti-corruption fight was one of the red-flagged areas and significant improvement of its efficiency is needed in a very short time. Although significant steps had been taken in the right direction, the reforms were still on the edge as they were facing the (open or hidden) opposition from people in decision positions feeling threatened by recent developments. Therefore a close public scrutiny of the whole process was needed to early signal and to prevent any potential derailment from the right track as it had been seen in the rejection of the law approving the OUG 134/2005.

Anti-Corruption Packages

The project was aimed at monitoring, archivation and presentation of the cases of corruption; and structural support of the organization.

Detection of Corruption in the Czech Public Administration

The project consisted in watchdog activities; monitoring and mapping the corruption space in different public authorities and institutions; evaluation of the systemic risks. The staff members of the organization worked under cover in different institutions, only the director of the NGO was known.

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