CGO: The new government continues the practice of the previous ones, half of the ministers did not give consent for access to bank accounts

The Center for Civic Education (CEO) indicated that more than half of the members of the Government did not give consent for access to bank accounts within the submitted property records.

As stated in the announcement of the CGO, the property record of the Deputy Prime Minister is not available on the website of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK).

"This is not the expected practice or the change that was promised during the election campaign by the new ruling majority. The fact is that the Law on the Prevention of Corruption stipulates that a public official can, in order to check the data from the report, give consent to the ASK for access to data on bank and other financial accounts institution in accordance with the law governing banking operations. This means that none of the seven members of the Government who did not give their consent violated the law," the announcement states.

They add that this also means "that those members of the Government who used the opportunity to withhold consent to access the account enter into a contradiction with the proclaimed principle of transparency of the Government's work".

In this way, as they point out in CGO, "the continuity of the bad practice of the previous authorities, which was often and rightly criticized by the former oppositionists", continues.

"Therefore, the CGE proposes to urgently proceed with changes to the Law on Prevention of Corruption in the part of the conditions for the election of members of the KAS Council in order to strengthen this body and have broad trust, which we pointed out earlier, but also in the part of prescribing mandatory and not optional consent to data from bank accounts, because this approach renders the control function of KAS meaningless. For reasons of effective transparency and public interest, access to bank accounts should be made mandatory for all public officials, while ensuring the protection of these data in accordance with international standards so that they are not misused ".

The CGO points out that on the political level, "this is an indicator of how public officials are ready to apply their commitment to transparency on a personal example".

"And here, unfortunately, neither the former nor the current government showed sufficient commitment. The CGE also points to the fact that a large number of deputies, both of the new parliamentary majority and of the opposition, did not submit their property records within the legal deadline, i.e. 30 days from the date of entry into office function, which, for unknown reasons, is not controlled by the KAS, nor does it react accordingly," concludes the announcement of the CGE.