Public administration must be open, present and tailored to citizens, announced the Minister of Public Administration, Maraš Dukaj, at the conference "Importance of Respecting the Right to Free Access to Information for the Openness of State Administration", organized by the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT).
"I will give the maximum contribution to the adoption of the law on free access to information (SPI)," said Dukaj, CDT reported.
Dukaj said that the ministry cannot do it alone, and that everyone must be involved.
"If there is no improvement, the law should not be adopted. I invite the entire public to get involved, because we need concrete proposals. Public administration at every level should be like this. I am not satisfied, because centralization is at every level, local self-government they must have greater autonomy," said Dukaj.
The deputy executive director of the CDT, Biljana Papović, said that institutions often place themselves above the law and hide information about their work.
"There are fewer and fewer people who regularly respond to requests for free access to information from citizens and non-governmental organizations. It is especially difficult to get information about the availability of budget funds, the number of employees in the administration and their names, and the salaries of public officials," said Papović.
CDT states that when we talk about access to information, we recently experienced a negative phenomenon that is dangerous for the functioning of the state - hacker attacks.
"The damage is difficult to assess, the data and the operational functioning of the administration are at risk," reads the CDT announcement.
Regarding cyber attacks, and in light of the topic of access to information, Dukaj said that Montenegro was not ready for a cyber attack.
"We are a member of NATO, we don't have 24/7 protection, and every country in the region has it. We had a strong attack on the entire state structure. Thanks to our people from the public administration, we managed to protect primary documents, which are in the interest of the state and citizens. We cannot say at this moment what the consequences are. We are working on establishing short-term and long-term goals, and soon we will have a team that will work 24/7. The priority is the formation of a cyber security agency, because there will be more and more attacks," said Dukaj. .
CDT announced that citizens have been promised functional digital services for years, but as they add, the work is still mostly completed at counters in exhausting administrative procedures.
Dukaj points out that the delay in digitization costs citizens and the economy a lot.
"We must digitize the entire system as soon as possible and enable citizens to complete their obligations in the easiest way. Soon we will have a pilot project for one entire municipality, if it passes, the project will be extended to other administrations. We must adapt services to citizens. Some services exist, but they are not accessible to everyone," said Dukaj.
The CDT said that, however, the question arises as to whether public administration officials are ready to work in a new environment.
"Until now, public administration officials have not had the opportunity to improve their skills in order to use certain services. The plan is to start a digital literacy procedure for public administration employees," said Dukaj.
Papović said that we have been waiting a long time for the Law on Government.
"That was one of the first moves at the beginning of the mandate of the new government. The working group did the first part of the work quite efficiently in drafting the draft. It was not very well received at the government session, the focus of the discussion instead of a systemic approach was placed on the number of departments and the organization that was not at the will of certain members of the Government," said Papović.
Dukaj said that Montenegro is the only country in the region that does not have a law on the Government.
"I will try to get him adopted as soon as possible," said Dukaj.
The conference "The importance of respecting the right to free access to information for the openness of state administration" is organized with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Bonus video:
