The Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, Tamara Srzentić, said that in the coming days, she will open a dialogue on the subject of the Law on Freedom of Access to Information and consider all proposals received from the civil sector, which refer to amendments to that document.
"We don't want a crack on paper, but in reality a counter, closed doors and silence of the administration as obstacles to development," said Srzentić, who today opened the conference "Openness as a Prerequisite for Government Control and Responsibility" organized by the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT).
She said that the Report "Openness of the Executive Power in the Region and Montenegro" according to the Regional Index of Openness is a very useful tool for public administration employees in the creation and practical application of openness policies.
"Government transparency is often perceived as simply providing information to the general public, but Government transparency is much more than that. Transparency also requires the transformation of ourselves from the public administration, because it constantly reminds us of the responsibility we have assumed on behalf of the citizens. Because before and after everything, we are public servants, which should constantly remind us of our task. This responsibility should, first of all, be felt and accepted by every individual employed in the public administration," said Srzentić, as announced by the ministry.
She emphasized that it is very important to introduce the best world practices into the legal framework related to access to information, into the practical application of the law. "I don't have a magic wand to solve all the open issues in this area, but I have the best will and the experience I gained outside of Montenegro to try to solve these issues in the way it is regulated in other countries of the world," she said.
"I invite you to discuss all open and controversial issues related to the Law on Free Access to Information together and through partnership and expert exchange of information. We need to adopt a legal solution that will provide citizens with access and insight into information, and make the work of public administration employees easier," said Srzentić.
She expressed, as the ministry added, her satisfaction with the initiated activities on the development of the Openness Strategy of the Government of Montenegro, and assessed that this document can provide guidelines for improving the situation in this area.
Srzentić said that it is necessary to dedicate ourselves to providing as much information as possible through digital channels, open data and electronic services, and that open data give ideas to others on how to use it in "completely new ways that we have never imagined", to create new values for society or indicate things that are important and that must be changed.
"The use of new technologies with the aim of improving accessibility and communication with citizens will be a priority of the new Government. The speed, efficiency and quality of service provision are prerequisites for the development of society and the economy. In the coming period, we will present new solutions for the website of the Government and the Ministry, we will launch a new eGovernment portal, but also other platforms on which we will communicate with citizens more easily", said the minister.
She said that by changing the business culture within the Government, she will work on empowering employees to participate in the creation of services that put the citizen first, to adapt significantly faster to their needs and to valorize the capacities of employees within the system to fully use their knowledge for the benefit of progress in society. .
"The task of every government is to combine all the capacities of knowledge and experience that the entire society has, and that is why the multidisciplinarity of teams, cooperation with the academic, NGO, private sector and individuals is an absolute priority that will create new social values," concluded Srzentić.
She called for an open dialogue to discuss all issues related to transparency, the possibility of possibly establishing a formal body that would deal with all these issues, and to strengthen cooperation within the Partnership for Open Administration.
New research results on the level of openness of executive power institutions in the region and Montenegro were presented at the conference. The research is part of a project implemented by CDT in cooperation with the network of non-governmental organizations ACTION SEE, and financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Papović: Enough of stagnation, the new government should be more open
The deputy executive director of CDT, Biljana Papović, stated that this organization, together with partners from the Action SEE network, has been measuring the level of openness of various authorities in the countries of the Western Balkans for several years in a row.
"The conclusion of our research, for which we collected data in the first half of 2020, is that institutions are recording a decline in openness, and there is no will to translate the standards and good practices of openness into binding regulations. This decline is part of the trend of decreasing openness that has existed for the past 4 years," said Papović, as reported by the CDT.
She added that the executive authorities in the region meet an average of 44.88 percent of the openness criteria, which is almost five percent worse than last year.
"The results indicate what we warned years ago, namely that the decline in openness and transparency of public administration is inevitable in the absence of a clear state policy in this field. The promotion of openness almost did not happen, and the authorities did not respect the legal obligations or the principles and practices of good governance without any consequences," said Papović.
According to the latest results, she said, on average, the executive power in North Macedonia is the most open, meeting 52.09 percent of the openness criteria, followed by the executive power in Montenegro with 51.67 percent of the criteria met. The executive power in Serbia meets 40.17 percent, while the government in Bosnia and Herzegovina meets 35.60 percent of the openness criteria.
"As in previous years, the results show that the level of openness decreases as we move towards those authorities that are at a lower hierarchical level in the public administration. On average, governments in the region satisfy 56.59 percent of the openness criteria, ministries 47.45 percent, and administrative bodies 30.61 percent, Papović said.
The new Government of Montenegro, as she stated, proclaimed openness as its key postulate, but, as she adds, after the first few sessions, this is not visible in practice.
"It is clear that it takes some time to prepare the preconditions for increasing the openness of the Government sessions, but it is necessary to make it possible to publish materials and agendas at least a day before the sessions, which is not the case now," said Papović.
She said, as stated by the CDT, that it is necessary to take an additional step forward in this field, which is why the CDT asked the Government's initiative to, as a first, short-term measure to increase the transparency of work, introduce the practice of publishing accurate and complete agendas with all accompanying materials and to open its sessions to the public.
"And we also received a reaction from the Prime Minister who announced that this will be a practice in future work. We hope that this positive reaction of the Prime Minister will not remain a statement and that concrete steps forward will be made in that direction," she said.
According to the data from the research, the Government of North Macedonia has caught up with the Government of Montenegro, with 75.9 percent of the openness criteria met. The Government of Montenegro meets 59.56 percent of the set criteria, thus sharing second place with the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"The ministries in Montenegro with an average result of 58.19 percent are the most open in the region, however, they are at the approximate level of openness of the ministries in North Macedonia (56.68%). In the previous year, the Ministry of Education was the most open in Montenegro with 78.94 percent of fulfilled indicators, while the lowest ranked Ministry of Foreign Affairs was with a result of 37.10 percent. Such differences in the level of openness additionally speak in favor of the fact that it is necessary to work on the development of policies of openness at the level of the entire executive power," said Papović.
She stated that this year the research team also recorded problems in finding documents and data on the websites of the ministries, due to unsystematic and functional problems of the portal of the Government of Montenegro.
"The new government must quickly solve this problem and make the government portal accessible to citizens and the media," Papović said.
As she added, in addition to transparency, the key principles underlying open administration are participation, responsibility and integrity. "Although we understand the need for quick legal interventions, we draw the attention of the new Government that, regardless of its needs, some legal texts must not be subject to urgent change procedures, so we call on them to organize public hearings for systemic and important laws and obtain appropriate relevant opinions before making changes domestic and international actors", said Papović.
"We hope that, after several years of stagnation, the time has come to move forward in this field and we expect the Government to take clear and concrete steps to increase transparency and openness. "We can already announce a new measurement of openness when we will measure the effects of the new Government's work in this area in a better way," she concluded.
The senior coordinator in NED, Tanja Dramac Djiris, announced that transparency should be treated as a necessity and not an expression of goodwill from those in power, CDT added.
She said that NED awards more than 1600 grants in 90 countries every year, and that it cooperates with 120 civil society organizations in the Western Balkans region. "NED sends a message of solidarity to people who work for democracy sometimes and in difficult conditions," she said.
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