The opinions set out in the public reports of Promo-LEX are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the donors view.

Transcription

1

2 All rights reserved. The content of the Report may be used and reproduced for not-for-profit purposes and without the preliminary consent of Promo-LEX Association, provided that the source of information is indicated. The initiative to monitor the transparency of the activity of the level-two LPA and ATUG is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Democracy, Transparency and Accountability Program (August 2016 July 2019). The opinions set out in the public reports of Promo-LEX are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the donors view. 1

3 TABLE OF CONTENS INTRODUCTION... 3 OBSERVATION METHODOLOGY... 4 SUMMARY... 6 I. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE LPAs AUTHORITIES AND STAKEHOLDERS DURING DECISION- MAKING...10 II. CONFORMITY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE LPA AUTHORITIES WEBSITES, IN TERMS OF TRANSPARENT DECISION-MAKING, WITH THE RELEVANT LEGISLATION...17 III. THE ATTITUDE OF LPA TOWARDS THE REQUEST OF OFFICIAL INFORMATION...22 IV. DEGREE OF TRANSPARENCY OF THE PROCESS OF PREPARING AND HOLDING THE MEETINGS OF LPAs DELIBERATIVE AUTHORITIES...25 V. TRANSPARENCY OF THE BUDGET PROCESS. ELEMENTS OF PARTICIPATIVE BUDGETING...35 VI. INTEGRITY AND CONFLICT OF INTERESTS...42 VII. TRANSPARENCY OF COMPETITIONS FOR CIVIL SERVICE POSITION...45 VIII. TRANSPARENCY OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES...48 RECOMMENDATIONS...58 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS...61 ANNEXES

4 INTRODUCTION Promo-LEX Association is an apolitical, not-for-profit non-governmental organization that pursues the public benefit and operates in accordance with the law in force of the Republic of Moldova (RM). The mission of Promo-LEX Association is to contribute to the development of democracy in RM by promoting and defending the human rights, monitoring the democratic processes, and strengthening the civil society. In order to implement the statutory provisions, Promo-LEX Association is carrying out, during August 2016 July 2019, the Democracy, Transparency and Accountability Program with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). One of the Program s projects is about monitoring the activity of level-two local public administration authorities and of the autonomous territorial unit of Gagauzia (ATUG) from the point of view of transparency in decision-making, conflict of interests and local participatory budgeting during Its objectives fit completely and harmoniously into the Promo-LEX Association s mission to monitor democratic processes. Local authorities are an important link of the national decision-making process, since they are closer to the citizens and know their needs better. This thesis, based on the principle of subsidiarity, is also proved by the results of the interviews of active citizens in the level-two administrative and territorial units (ATU) and ATUG, carried out by the Promo-LEX monitors (see Annex 1). The transparency of the local decision-making process and access to official information are essential in ensuring the efficiency of the decision-making, legality and legitimacy of the involved authorities. Special attention to the level-two administrative authorities and ATUG is caused by the insufficient approach to their activity s transparency in the public administration system of Moldova. Civic monitoring of the activity of the public administration authorities is necessary and beneficial by virtue of the general mission to improve the quality of the administrative processes and make the stakeholders involved accountable.to this end, when drawing up the reports on monitoring the transparency of the activity of the level-two LPAs and ATUG, the other civic associations experience in the monitoring of decision-making processes of the RM public administration was considered as well. Report No 1 on monitoring the transparency of the activity of the level-two LPAs and ATUG in the RM during is the first one of the 5 Reports planned for The purpose of the reports on monitoring the transparency of the public administration s activity is to verify whether the decision-making processes carried out by the level-two LPAs and ATUG are as transparent as provided for in the legal provisions in the field, as well as whether they are in line with the policy documents and actions undertaken by the public authorities. The reports are drawn up by the Promo-LEX Association central team, under the Monitoring Democratic Processes Program, on the basis of findings reported by the monitors regarding the activity of all stakeholders engaged in decision-making in level-two administrations and ATUG: public authorities, local and regional media, civil society organisations, local opinion leaders, etc. 3

5 OBSERVATION METHODOLOGY The methodology of monitoring the transparency of the activity of level-two LPA authorities and ATUG provides for and regulates the methodological framework, the object of monitoring, the parties involved, duration and procedures of monitoring of transparency in decision-making, of the conflict of interests and budgeting process, including participative budgeting, at the administrative level. The methodology implies continuous monitoring of the institutions and their operating procedures, with semi-annual public reports. The following authorities underwent monitoring: a. deliberative and representative authorities: district councils, municipal councils (Balti and Chisinau), People s Assembly of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia (ATUG); b. executive authorities: District President, Mayor General of Chisinau municipality, Mayor of Balti municipality, ATUG Governor. Thus, it is clear that not only district public authorities of the RM, but also those of Balti and Chisinau municipalities (which are level-two administrations as well) and Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia (ATUG) underwent monitoring. Acknowledging the difference between the duties of the public authorities of the corresponding administrative and autonomous units, the authors considered it useful and rational to use in the monitoring reports a joint term LPA (local public administration) to name the district (32 ATU) and municipal (2 ATU) administrations and a unit with special legal status ATUG. This merger is also justified by the fact that the study does not focus on the authorities powers and duties, but rather on the transparency of their activity, thus, the requirements here being generic for all the named public authorities. Consultation with the stakeholders about the activity of LPA authorities played an important role in the monitoring. For the purposes of this methodology, stakeholders means citizens, local opinion leaders, legally created associations, media, other legal entities governed by private law, affected or that could be affected by the decision, and which can participate in the decision-making process and influence it. About 105 persons from all the monitored regions, representing various organisations, civic associations, the media, business entities and civic activists were interviewed with their voluntary consent, and, respectively, asked about their opinion (see Annex 1). The following areas were identified and set in order to attain the LPA monitoring objectives: - assess the quality of communication between the stakeholders and the authorities involved in decision-making; - analyse the conformity of the contents of the authorities websites in terms of decisional transparency with the relevant legislation; - identify the LPAs attitude about the requests for official information; - find out the degree of transparency of the process of preparing and holding the meetings of representative and deliberative authorities; - assess the transparency of the budget process, including the aspects of participative budgeting; - transparency of competitions for public office; - clarify the issue of professional integrity and conflict of interests; - find out the degree of transparency of the public procurement procedures and tenders. The legal framework regulating the subject of research includes a range of regulatory acts (see Annex 2), among which: Law No 239 of 13 November 2008 on the Transparency in the Decision- Making Process, Law No 982 of 11 May 2000 on Access to Information and Law No 436 of 28 December 2006 on Local Public Administration. Monitoring the LPAs activity in terms of this Methodology implies collection and processing qualitative and quantitative information using certain pre-set work methods/tools: - legal framework analysis; 4

6 - interviews and focus groups with the representatives of LPAs and stakeholders (identifying perception); - direct observation; - monitoring of representative and deliberative authorities meetings; - review of websites of the public authorities being monitored, and of other public institutions, as needed; - etc. The degree of transparency of the decision-making processes is monitored by the national coordinator and 5 regional coordinators of Promo-LEX Association 1 having the status of monitors. When needed, they are assisted by the Promo-LEX volunteers from the corresponding ATU (see Annex 3). The involved monitors signed an observers Code of Conduct similar to that used in the election campaigns 2. The obtained quantitative and qualitative data are stored on a web platform for collection and, respectively, reporting of information to the central team, which processes it in order to draw up a monitoring report. The reporting web platform is developed and managed by Promo-LEX. The monitoring by Promo-LEX Association of the decision-making transparency in LPAs activity is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The opinions presented in the public reports of Promo-LEX belong to authors and do not necessarily reflect the donors view. 1 The territory of the Republic of Moldova was divided into monitoring regions on the basis of Promo-LEX Association s own methodology, by the location of territorial offices and districts each regional coordinator is responsible for

7 SUMMARY This Report was drawn up by the central team of Promo-LEX Association on the basis of analysis of the reporting forms filled out by the monitors from 1 January 30 June 2017, and namely: 35 general monitoring forms; 121 forms for the monitoring of the meetings of representative and deliberative authorities; 35 forms for the interviews with the LPAs representatives and 105 forms for interviews with the stakeholders. The stakeholders are active society members, influencing the decision-making process. Thus, the contents and quality of communication with them is extremely important in assessing the degree of transparency of LPAs activity. The synthesis of the quality of communication between the LPAs authorities and stakeholders in decision-making, carried out on the basis of perceptions of LPAs civil servants and interviewed parties shows that they mainly use the relative/satisfactory and insignificant/unsatisfactory descriptors to characterise the process. Promo-LEX deduces there is dialogue between the LPAs and the stakeholders, insufficient, however, for a transparent decisionmaking process. The most frequently used communication channels are online platforms. Of the total of 35 interviewed LPA servants, 34 named the website as the main source of information transfer, while 23 social media. On the other hand, of 105 interviewed stakeholders, 89 used website as a source of information, while 30 used social media to this end. These virtual channels are followed by the traditional media newspapers, TV, radio, as well as information boards. The share of 58.10% of the interviewed stakeholders know about public consultations organised by the LPAs authorities, although only 38.10% of them participate in such events. The following reasons for non-participation were named: the perfunctory nature of the organised consultations, no invitation, participation in the public consultations organised by the level-one LPAs authorities (considered a priority) and refusal to participate. At the same time, the LPAs authorities do not develop an institutionalised mechanism to permanently inform the stakeholders about the fieldspecific issues. Instead, in the absolute majority of cases the latter learn about the decision-making processes from the public sources. According to 97.14% of LPA civil servants, the degree of citizens participation in public consultations during the monitored period was insignificant and relative. According to LPA, the reasons of the citizens insignificant participation were the following: citizens apathy, passivity and lack of wish to participate; their priority interests were not related to issues in the the locality; lack of information. The perception of accessibility of the LPAs offices (70.48% of the interviewees) shows there are numerous deficiencies in their accessibility and equipment with facilities for the citizens, especially for those with special needs. The authorities should participate actively in addressing certain important issues, such as: ensuring disabled persons access to the authority s head office, facilitating the mobility inside the building, providing enough chairs on the institution s hallways, furnishing a nursing room, providing accessible toilet, etc. The conformity of the contents of LPAs websites with the legal provisions in terms of decision-making transparency leaves room for improvement. The legislation in force provides for 9 types of information that must be published on a website of a public authority 3. Thus, more than 50% of 3 Internal rules of the procedures of informing, consulting and participation in the decision-making process; Information about the first name, last name, position and contact number of a person responsible for the decision-making process; Information about the decisions drafting schedules (quarterly/annual); Announcements about starting the process of decision drafting; Announcements about the withdrawal of draft decisions; 6

8 LPAs were found to meet the legal provisions only for 3 types of information. In this context, of the total of 35 LPAs 35 (71.43%) published draft decisions and related documents, 20 (57.14%) specified on their websites the person responsible for the organisation of the decision-making process, with his/her contact information, while 18 LPAs (51.43%) published internal rules about the procedures for informing, consulting and participation in the decision-making process on their websites. On the other hand, when it comes to the substantial indicators for identifying the level of efficiency of decision-making transparency, the results are extremely low: only 3 LPAs (8.57%) have published announcements about starting to draft decisions, and only 3 LPAs (8.57%) have published on their official websites the summary of recommendations received in public consultations. This takes place in conditions where, according to the reports of Promo-LEX monitors, 16 LPAs (45.71%) have published complete announcements about public consultations in the decision-making process. Likewise, only 12 LPAs (34.29%) have published their annual reports on the decision-making process. In conclusion, speaking about transparency in decisionmaking, the analysis of data per LPA shows that according to the monitoring of the the degree of conformity of the contents of LPAs websites with the relevant legal provisions, Edinet and Balti authorities have the best results (7 types of information published out of 9). To identify the LPAs attitude about the requests for official information, LPAs were sent 71 requests for the access to official information, 2 per each LPA, except for ATUG, which received 3 requests. As a result, in 40 cases (56.34%), LPA responded within the legal time limit. In 21 cases (29.58%) there was no response at all, while in 10 cases (14.08%) the response was delayed. We found that in almost half of the cases the responses were either incomplete or provided beyond the legal time limit. Of 50 provided responses (within or beyond the deadline), 14 (28%) were incomplete. The requests were sent both by Promo-LEX monitors and by the citizens who were not involved directly in the monitoring process. Nevertheless, in case of requests from citizens not involved directly in the monitoring activities 40% of them were not answered to, while in case of monitors about 20%. In case of 12 of 35 LPAs (34.29%) Basarabeasca, Calarasi, Falesti, Floresti, Glodeni, Hincesti, Leova, Balti mun., Singerei, Stefan Voda, Telenesti and Ungheni both responses were provided within the legal time limit. Yet, 6 LPAs (17.14%) Briceni, Donduseni, Drochia, Nisporeni, Rezina and Soroca did not respond to the requests for official information, thus violating current legal norms and demonstrating total lack of transparency. According to the findings of the monitoring of the transparency of preparing and holding the meetings of LPAs deliberative authorities, the transparency in the local decision-making process is mostly maintained. According to Promo-LEX monitors, during the first semester of 2017, the deliberative authorities of LPAs had at least 121 meetings (the information about at least 4 meetings held by Cantemir and Taraclia LPAs was not provided). Of these, 60 were ordinary and 61 extraordinary. As much as 115 meetings were deliberative (95.04%) and only in 6 cases there were not enough councillors to hold the meeting. All of the meetings were accessible to Promo-LEX monitors. The announcements were published mainly through the online communication channels on the LPA website in case of 96 meetings out of 121 (79.33%). In LPAs communication with the external environment we see the same trend of the increasing role of online means. The term of 3 working days for publishing the announcement was observed in case of 108 meetings (89.25%). Announcements about organisation of public consultations; Draft decisions and relevant materials; Results of the public consultations; Annual report of the public authority on transparency in decision-making. 7

9 The fact that there was a great number of meetings at which decisions were adopted but not made public is one of the negative aspects we d like to stress out. Thus, of 115 monitored deliberative meetings, only in 79 cases (68.69%) LPAs published the adopted decisions. Also, of 26 meetings with urgent matters on the agenda, in 17 cases (65.38%) the general public was not informed about the need to include and adopt certain urgent decisions, which is a violation of the legal norms. The concept of participative budgeting is also a little-known one. Although about 70% of interviewees stated they understood the concept, after analysing the answers we saw that the awareness is truncated and superficial, narrowed down to the idea that the citizens only participate in consulting the draft budget, omitting their involvement in the distribution of public money. The Moldovan legislation does not contain provisions in this respect. Chisinau and Balti municipalities can be called examples of good practice (in the initial stage, though). Having examined the stakeholders interview questionnaires regarding transparency of the local budget process, we saw that only 21 (20%) of 105 interviewees reported that they had taken part in the public consultation of the ATU draft budget for the current year. On the other hand, the study of the interviews qualitative aspects showed that their engagement was more about being informed rather than about making proposals or recommendations regarding the contents of the matters discussed. Speaking about the reflection of the stages of development, examination, approval and reporting of ATU budgets (draft budget, adopted budget, corrections and implementation report) on the LPA website, in case of 25 LPAs (71.43%) of the 35 administrative units, the approved budgets were published on the official website, while the draft budgets were published only by 14 LPAs (40%). To ensure the transparency of the decision-making process, it is essential to publish not only the end product, but the initial one as well, on the basis of which the public consultation is supposed to be carried out. We also note that only 21 LPAs (60%) published the Budget Implementation Report. In conclusion, these are the authorities, which, according to the monitors, fulfilled the legal requirements by publishing the information about the decision-making process on their websites: Criuleni, Donduseni, Drochia, Dubasari, Falesti, Glodeni, Soroca, Straseni, Stefan Voda and Balti. During the analysis of the issues of professional integrity and conflict of intereststhe following aspects were reviewed: an Institutional Ethics Code in place; the publication of CVs of heads of the authorities concerned; the submission for publication of the declaration of assets and personal interests; the anti-corruption hotline in place. Thus, it was found out that none of the LPAs authorities have an Institutional Ethics Code. Although the legislation does not expressly provide for this, we believe it is appropriate for the authorities to develop and implement such documents, by virtue of social needs and legislative shortcomings in the field. Likewise, only two ATUs (Chisinau and Telenesti) have an anti-corruption hotline on their website. According to Promo-LEX monitors, 16 (45.71%) out of 35 LPAs published the CVs of the following persons: of district presidents and deputy-presidents; mayors and deputy mayors (Balti and Chisinau municipalities); Governor and the Speaker of the ATUG People's Assembly. In 12 (34.29%) cases, no such document was published on the authority s website. In conclusion, as regards the aforementioned persons holding public dignity offices, on 30 June 2017, no declaration of assets and personal interests, contrary to the legal norms, was published on NIA website. Promo-LEX Association found that the transparency of competitions for employment in public function is moderately positive. Most of the LPAs that organised competitions met the conditions related to the competition advertising by placing the announcement and the conditions on their website, in the media and on the information boards. The extent of information placement ranged from 80.65% (media) to 96.77% (website). In general, we may deduce that only 67.74% of the LPAs used all three communication channels established by law. 8

10 The transparency of public procurement procedures was assessed by looking into whether the following types of documents were published: the annual procurement plan; announcement of intent; procurement contracts; annual report; working group reports. In conclusion, note that the LPAs official websites ensure little transparency of the public procurements process. Although the legislation tackles this matter, the publishing of the procurement process on the websites of the public authorities for the monitored period has been limited to: publishing of procurement plans by 42.86% of LPAs (15 of 35), announcements of intent by (15 of 35 LPAs) and the contracts awarded by 34.29% (12 of 35 LPAs). The publishing of reports on low-value public procurements on the LPAs official websites is an even more alarming matter 14.29% (only 5 out of 35 LPAs published these reports) and the quarterly/biannual and annual reports on the monitoring of the implementation of public procurement contracts 5.71% (2 out of 35 LPAs), respectively. In the light of the precarious situation with the transparency of public procurement procedures on the LPAs websites, and on the basis of the relevant legislation, the Promo-LEX monitors have also used the State Register of Public Procurement Information System of the Public Procurement Agency to analyse this matter. Thus, 65% of the total amount of LPAs procurements targeted the repair of roads and buildings, and 12% the purchase of oil products. At the same time, 5% of the amount of procurements was spent on vehicles, while the purchase price per unit was different: from MDL 239 thousand (Singerei LPA) to MDL 530 thousand (Edinet LPA). Promo-LEX Association also found a high number of cases of procurement contracts awarded on the basis of a very small number of bids submitted in the tender. Thus, 19% of the procurement contracts (with the total amount of MDL 13.8 million) resulting from public tenders/requests for price quotations, were signed by LPAs on the basis of a single bid submitted in the tender. The objects of these procurement contracts were the following: oil products, repair of roads, vehicles, and other goods and services. 9

11 I. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE LPAs AUTHORITIES AND STAKEHOLDERS DURING DECISION-MAKING The quality of communication between the LPAs authorities and stakeholders during decisionmaking was assessed on the basis of the following aspects: reflecting the information sources used by the authorities to convey information to the citizens in the context of organisation and conduct of the decision-making process; determining the involvement of the stakeholders in the public consultation process; identifying the accessibility and facilities of LPAs offices subjected to the monitoring; degree of cooperation with the civil society associations. By including this subject, Promo-LEX Association intended to create an overall image of the existing channels of communication between the LPAs authorities and the stakeholders, as the most active social subjects directly affected by the administrative decision-making process. Two basic methodological tools were used: observation and interviewing. The direct observation implied monitoring of the information boards and newsletters, local and regional newspapers, as well as analysing LPAs websites and social media accounts. Both individual and focus groups interviews were carried out. This method was used to find out the actors perception of the situation in the field. To obtain more objective results, both LPAs representatives (as a rule, the secretary of the district/municipal council or the civil servant responsible for the public relations) and stakeholders representatives (citizens, local opinion leaders, legally established associations, media, etc.) were questioned. During the monitored period, 35 interviews with the LPAs representative and 105 interviews with the stakeholders were analysed. The subjects included in the Interview Grid are reflected in Annexes 4 and The first subject reflecting the nature of communication between the LPAs authorities and the stakeholders refers to the identification of the information sources used by the authorities to transmit information about organisation and conduct of the decision-making process to the citizens and other stakeholders This exercise is followed by the presentation of information sources the parties prefer to use when learning about the stages of the decision-making process. Comparison of the opinions will help to cover the issue more comprehensively and objectively. Table 1. The degree of use of the communications sources by the LPAs and stakeholders Information source Use by the LPAs Use by the stakeholders Newsletter 4 (11.42%) 8 (7.62%) Information board 30 (85.71%) 13 (12.38%) Authority s website 34 (97.14%) 89 (84.76%) Social media 23 (65.71%) 30 (28.57%) Newspaper 27 (77.14%) 49 (46.67%) Radio 5 (14.29%) 6 (5.71%) TV 11 (31.43%) 11 (10.48%) Other 1 (2.86%) 23 (21.90%) The interviewees could tick several options (see Table 1). Those 35 LPA representatives chose 135 options, while 105 civil society representatives ticked 229 options. Judging from the indicated options, the authority s website is the most popular source of information used both by the LPAs 34 of 35 authorities (97.14%), and by the stakeholders 89 of 105 persons (84.76%). LPAs use other options as communication channels as well: information board (85.71%), newspapers (77.14%) and social media (65.71%). Stakeholders, on the other hand, use the following information means: newspapers (46.67%), social media (28.57%) and direct communication with the LPA representatives (other 21.90%). The provided data also show that information boards are used by 85.71% of the LPAs and by only 12.38% of the stakeholders. 10

12 As with the total number of options, the most consulted sources of information about the LPAs activity used by the active citizens are the online ones (websites and social media) 119 ticked options of the total of 229 (51.97%). Traditional media (TV, newspapers, radio) are followed by about 28.83% 66 options ticked of 229. On the other part, we see that the LPAs try to adapt to these trends. According to the officials, LPAs communicate with the external environment via virtual communication channels in a proportion of 42.23%, and via the traditional one in 31.85% of cases Promo-LEX thinks, that another subject relevant for identifying the nature of communication between the citizens and LPAs refers to determining the involvement of the stakeholders in the process of public consultation. According to Law on Transparency in Decision-Making, public consultation is a reciprocal communication between the citizens, legally created associations, other stakeholders, on the one part, and public authorities falling within the relevant legislation, on the other part, in the result of which both parties are informed and capable of influencing the decisionmaking process. Thus, 58.10% (61 persons) of the interviewees know about public consultations organised by the LPAs authorities in order to ask the opinion of the community. At the same time, 38.10% (40 persons) confirmed that they had participated in such activities (see Chart 1) Chart 1. Involvement of the stakeholders in the process of public consultation YES NO DK/WA Total 105 Do you know about organization of public consultations? Have you ever participated in public consultations? These numbers, based on the stakeholders opinion, show that public consultations are being organised, and that citizens participation and engagement in this process is satisfactory. As for nonparticipation, stakeholders named the following reasons: the perfunctory nature of the organised consultations, no invitation, participation in the public consultations organised by the level-one LPAs authorities, considered as a priority, and refusal to participate. We would like to remind that, according to legal norms, the information of the stakeholders has to be target-specific, unlike the general information process, directed towards large, undefined public. Thus, we notice the lack of an institutionalised mechanism to inform permanently the stakeholders about the field-specific issues. Table 2. Degree of citizens participation in decision-making, according to the LPAs representatives Degree of participation Significant Relative Insignificant Total Number of options Share 2.86% 45.71% 51.43% 100% 11

13 Basically, the way the LPAs representatives perceive the citizens participation in the decisionmaking process (see Table 2), confirms the trends reflected in the Chart 1. The interviewed civil servants also think that the majority of the citizens are not interested in the contents of the decision-making process (51.43%). Still, the conclusions drawn from the engagement of parties in the public consultations organised by LPAs, are ambiguous. On the one hand, the majority of the stakeholders representatives did not participate in the public consultations, although 58.10% of them were notified about these, and according to 97.14% of LPA civil servants, the degree of citizens participation in consultations during the monitored period was insignificant and relative. Thus, we come to a conclusion that the stakeholders (including the citizens) participation in the public consultation process is insignificant. On the other hand, the confirmed participation of 40 persons (38.10%) (see Chart 1), along with the perception of participation by 45.71% as relative and by 2.86% as significant (see Table 2), suggests a slightly optimistic the-glass-is-half-full appreciation. We think that the situation with citizens engagement in public consultations is unsatisfactory, although with positive potential for development. According to LPA, some of the most popular reasons of the citizens insignificant participation were the following: apathy, passivity and lack of wish to participate; their priority interests were not related to issues in the locality; lack of information (see Chart 2). Note that the civil servants also indicated (openly) reasons arising from the activity of public authorities as well, like the fact that the citizens are not informed and that LPAs do not have a transparency policy. Promo-LEX Association appreciates this self-critical attitude and thinks that the monitoring activity will help LPAs authorities understand the need of policies to inform citizens about exercising their right to information and participation. Chart 2. Motivational aspects of non-participation of the stakeholders Direct consultations with the local party leaders Lack of LPAs population information policies Mistrust towards level-two LPAs Lack of information, legal ignorance Citizens interest in level-one LPAs Citizens apathy, passivity and lack of wish to participate In conclusion, the analysis of the degree of citizens participation in the decision-making process, including participation in public consultations, shows that the stakeholders self-assessment of activism and citizen participation is more positive (38.10% participation in consultations) than the assessment of LPA civil servants, who are more reserved in this regard (97.14% relative/insignificant). We appreciate the fact that some of LPA representatives self-critically said that the the problems with citizens participation are caused, among other reasons, by the lack of information policies in ensuring transparency in decision-making An efficient communication with public authorities depends on the accessibility and facilities of the LPAs offices as well.this does not necessarily apply to the stakeholders only, but rather to all the categories of citizens, and especially to the elderly and disabled persons. Aspects included in the interview grid include: disabled persons access to the building, chairs on the hallways, information board about draft decisions, a waiting room, an accessible WC (including for the disabled persons). The interviews were used as a methodological tool for that stage. As much as 105 stakeholders 12

14 representatives conveyed their perception of accessibility and facilities of LPAs authorities buildings. They perceived it as very good and good 26.67% (see Chart 3), satisfactory 40.00% and unsatisfactory 30.48%. The absolute majority (70.48%) varies between the satisfactory and unsatisfactory, which means an acceptable situation at the general level of perception, which, however, does not actually meet minimum requirements. Chart 3. Accessibility Very good Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory DK/WA Total The perception by regions reflected by the stakeholders shows that the best situation in this field is in Orhei and Floresti, while the worst in Briceni, Calarasi, Criuleni, Donduseni, Drochia and Riscani (see Table 3). 13

15 Table 3. Perception of the accessibility and presence of facilities in LPAs offices by ATU (based on the stakeholders opinions) Region ATU Very good Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory DK/WA Total North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat Briceni Donduseni Drochia Edinet Ocnita Riscani Soroca Balti Falesti Floresti Glodeni Rezina Singerei Soldanesti Telenesti Anenii Noi Causeni Chisinau Criuleni Dubasari Stefan Voda Calarasi Hincesti Ialoveni Orhei Nisporeni Straseni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimislia Leova Taraclia ATU Gagauzia Total 105 In conclusion, the low level of accessibility to LPAs buildings for the disabled persons, as well as minimum facilities for other categories of persons, such as, for example, older people or breastfeeding mothers, is another problem we would like to bring to the forefront by means of monitoring. The general perception (70.48%) shows that the monitors should thoroughly observe the details of the aspects and present these in the subsequent reports Cooperation with the civil society associations is another important aspect in ensuring the transparency of the decision-making process by public authorities. Monitors believe that the civic associations have to play an important role in communication with LPAs. Of 35 interviewed representatives of the public administrations, 33 said they have cooperated during the 14

16 corresponding period with various associations from the NGO sector (see Table 4). Among national associations there are: Promo-LEX Association, IDIS Viitorul, Congress of Local Authorities from Moldova, CONTACT Centre, etc. Table 4. List of civic associations that LPA staff identified as participants in decision-making Region ATU Civic associations Briceni IDIS Viitorul; Union of Afghanistan War Veterans based in Briceni; Briceni Territorial Association of Liquidators of Chernobyl Accident Consequences; Promo-LEX Association Donduseni Speranta [ Hope ] CA from Donduseni; Tinerele Femei [ Young Women ] CA from Cernoleuca; Toamna Varstei [lit. Autumn of One's Life ] CA Drochia Ariadna Maternal Centre; Promo-LEX Association North, Edinet Regional Office North-East, Balti Regional Office Center-South East, Chisinau Regional Office Center-South-West, Calarasi South, Comrat Regional Office Edinet Ocnita Riscani Soroca Balti Falesti Floresti Glodeni Rezina Singerei Soldanesti Telenesti Anenii Noi Causeni Chisinau DEMOS CA; AREAP CA ( Prutul de Sus Regional Adult Education Association), NEXUS Centre CA None specified Moldova-AIS CA, Mostenitorii [ The Inheritors ] CA; Promo-LEX Association Dacia CA; Promo-LEX Association Promo-LEX Association, Association of Business Women; CRAT; ANIMA CA Cutezatorul [ The Audacious ] CA; Terre des hommes CA; Every Child CA, etc. Marinimie [ Large-heartedness ] Day Center for Children with Disabilities; Vidia CA; Gloria CA; Nadejda CA CBS AXA, Promo-LEX Association Habitat RDA; Sanitas CA; Nufarul CA Viitorul [ Future ] youth friendly health center, subordinated to Singerei Health Centre Soldanesti Football Association; the youth friendly health center Concordia Humanitarian Organisation Astra CA; National Youth Council of Moldova (CNTM); PAS health CA DEMOS Moldova Civic Association Orasul Nostru [ Our Town ] CA; CNTM Criuleni Criuleni Debate Centre and Femeia si Copilul Protectie si Sprijin [ Woman and Child Protection and Support ] CA Dubasari Femeia si Copilul Protectie si Sprijin [ Woman and Child Protection and Support ] CA; Dubasari Parents Association Stefan Voda CNTM Calarasi CONTACT National NGO Assistance and Support Centre; the Civic Association PRODOCS Centre for Childhood, Adolescence and Family (CCAF); Interactiune CA; Dorinta [ Wish ] Association Supporting Children and Young People with Disabilities and Their Families Hincesti Chernobyl CA; Pasarea Albastra [ The Blue Bird ] CA; Viitorul [ Future ] CA Ialoveni Orhei Nisporeni Straseni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimislia Leova Taraclia ATU Gagauzia Ialoveni Capitala Tineretului [ Ialoveni Capital of the Young ] CA; Eco-Razeni CA; Alternaativa CA NO None specified Blind People's Association Europa Visage CA; Viitorul Incepe Azi [ Future Begins Today ] CA; National Association of Adoptive Parents; Sprijin si Speranta [ Support and Hope ] CA Association of Health Workers in Basarabeasca District PERSPECTIVA Civic Association ACTIV Civic Association NO Independent Press Association; Congress of Local Authorities from Moldova Taraclia District Veterans Association; Association of Health Workers in Taraclia District VESTA CA; PILIGRIM-DEMO CA 15

17 In the same train of thoughts, but from a different standpoint, the 105 persons form the monitored regions were asked to assess the role of the organizations they represented in decision-making. In 40.95% of the cases (i.e. 43 persons), the self-assessment regarding the power to influence administrative decisions was positive. These respondents believed that their organisation or they personally played an important role in decision-making (see Table 5). Table 5. Self-assessment regarding the role that organisations play in decision-making (stakeholders opinions) Assessment/Role Significant Relative Insignificant DK/WA Total Number/Share of assessments 43 (40.95%) 44 (41.90%) 17 (16.20%) 1 (0.95%) 105 (100%) Should we compare it to the LPA civil servants opinions reflected in Table 2, regarding how the civil servants perceived the extent to which the citizens are involved in decision-making, where the share of relative and insignificant importance was of 97.14%, we may conclude that the stakeholders over-appreciated the role they played in decision-making. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that Cimislia LPA and Orhei LPA reported, during the interviews, that they do not collaborate with civic associations. Orhei LPA specified that they did not work with the local ones. While in Orhei LPA, the civil servants views coincided, for the most part, with those of the stakeholders that admitted their role in public opinion consultations was insignificant, the stakeholders in Cimislia argued that their role in decision-making was relative, although the civil servants reported they did not interact with the civic associations from the district. The information sources that the stakeholders check out most often are the ones from the virtual environment (51.96% web sites and social networks). To compare, 28.83% of the active citizens prefer the traditional mass-media (TV, newspapers, radio). The share of 58.10% of the interviewed stakeholders know about public consultations organised by the LPA authorities, although only 38.10% of them participate in such events. In this context, we found that the LPA authorities do not have an institutionalised mechanism to inform permanently the stakeholders regarding specific issues. Instead, in the absolute majority of cases, the latter learn information about the decision-making processes from the public sources. According to 97.14% of LPA civil servants, the degree of citizens participation in public consultations during the monitored period was insignificant and relative. The perception of the degree of accessibility of buildings (the opinion of the stakeholders is that the buildings are accessible to an extent of 70.48%) reveals there are many issues in this regard. This requires a close monitoring and taking action as regards the following matters: the access of disabled persons to buildings, too few chairs on the hallways, special room for mothers with young children, user-friendly WC for disabled persons. The synthesis of the quality of communication between the LPA authorities and stakeholders in decision-making, carried out on the basis of perceptions of LPA civil servants and of the interviewed parties, shows that they mainly use relative/satisfactory and insignificant/unsatisfactory to describe it.promo-lex concludes that there is communication, but it is still not enough for efficient and successful decision-making. 16

18 II. CONFORMITY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE LPA AUTHORITIES WEBSITES, IN TERMS OF TRANSPARENT DECISION-MAKING, WITH THE RELEVANT LEGISLATION Considering the current developments in communication technologies, using online information sources is no longer seen as a luxury, but rather as a need and an opportunity to solve the issues of communication between the organizations, including of the public ones, and the external world. Tapping the opportunities provided by the internet is a must for modern public administrations. Online communication provides a range of opportunities to highlight the principle of administrative transparency. Article 3(4) of the Law No 239 on Transparency in Decision-Making provides that the LPA shall consult with the citizens, associations established in line with the law, other stakeholders about draft regulations, draft administrative documents that can have social, economic, environmental impacts (on lifestyle and human rights, on culture, health and social protection, on local groups, public services). Concurrently, the Government Decision (GD) No 967 on the Mechanism for Public Consultations with the Civil Society in Decision-Making provides that the LPA shall ensure access to draft decisions and related documents by publishing them on the official website, as well as it shall approve internal rules concerning the procedures on decision development, information, consultation and adoption of decisions in compliance with the law in force. To abide by those provisions, the LPA authorities have to take measures to make sure the citizens, associations established in line with the law, other decision-making stakeholders can participate, including by publishing the following information on the website: their internal rules on the procedures of information, consultation and participation in decision-making; first name, last name, position and contact data of the person responsible of the decision-making process; information about the (quarterly/annual) schedules on the development of draft decision; announcements that the development of a decision is about to start; announcements that draft decisions were withdrawn, announcements regarding the organisation of public consultations; draft decisions and related documents; the results of public consultations, the annual report of the public authority on transparency in decision-making.promo-lex monitors checked whether such pieces of information were published on the websites of the authorities (data disaggregated by ATU, on the basis of Promo-LEX regions are provided in Annex 6). Item 6 of the GD No 967 provides that the LPA shall approve internal rules concerning the procedures on decision development, information, consultation and adoption of decisions in compliance with the law in force. Chart 4. Approval of internal rules on the decision-making process and appointment of a responsible person Internal rules Yes No Partial Responsible person According to the reports of Promo-LEX monitors, such internal rules were approved and published on the websites of 18 LPA authorities (See Charts 4 and 5). 17

19 Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Chart 5. Publication of the internal rules 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Only 20 LPA authorities appointed a person responsible for organising the decision-making process, and published the contact data on the website (see Chart 6). Chart 6. Person responsible for the decision-making process 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% According to Item 14(3) of the GD No 967, to facilitate the access of the stakeholders to the information on the decision-making process, the LPA shall publish on the official website information about the (quarterly/annual) schedules on the development of draft decision, specifying the drafts that will be subject to public consultations. According to the reports developed by Promo-LEX monitors, only 8 LPAs published such schedules (see Chart 7). Chart 7. Project development schedules 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% According to Article 9(1) of the Law No 239, once the development of a decision began, the LPA shall publish an announcement in this regard on its official website within 15 working days at most and shall send it immediately to the stakeholders by , and shall post it up on its premises in a visible place and/or shall broadcast it on the local or national media. As reported by Promo-LEX monitors, in the I st semester of 2017, only 3 LPAs (Edinet, Glodeni and Straseni) published 18

20 Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU announcements that they initiated developing draft decisions. As for the People s Assembly of Gagauzia ATU, members of the legislature held briefings regarding certain initiatives to work on draft decisions (see Chart 8). Chart 8. Announcements about the start of decision drafting 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% According to Article 12 1 of the Law No 239, should a draft decision be withdrawn, the LPA shall put an announcement about it on its official website, specifying the reason for that too. As reported by Promo-LEX monitors and having checked the websites, none of the LPAs posted on its website announcements regarding the withdrawal of draft decisions in the I st semester of Article 11 of the Law No 239 provides that the LPAs shall organise public consultations for the developed draft decisions. For this purpose, the authorities shall publish the announcement that public consultations will be held, as well as the related documents, 15 working days before finalising the draft decision. Also, Article 10 of the Law No 239 provides that the LPAs shall ensure the access to draft decisions and related documents by publishing them on their websites. Chart 9. Announcements about public consultation and publication of draft decisions Yes No Partial Publication of draft decisions Public consultation during the decision-making process As put down in the reports of Promo-LEX monitors, 16 LPAs published announcements regarding public consultations as part of decision-making (see Charts 9 and 10), but 3 LPAs published incomplete information (not all developed drafts were subject to public consultations). 19

21 Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Chart 10. Announcements regarding public consultations 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% With regards to publishing the draft decision and related documents, it was found that 25 LPAs did not publish draft decisions and related documents, while 6 LPAs published the information only partially without related documents (see Charts 9 and 11). Chart 11. Publication of draft decisions and related documents 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Article 12(5) of the Law No 239 provides that it is mandatory for the LPAs to publish on their official websites the overview of the recommendations received following public consultations. Promo-LEX monitors reported that such information was published on the websites by only 3 LPAs Riscani, Balti and Telenesti (see Chart 12). Chart 12. Publication of the overview of recommendations received following public consultations 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Article 16(2) of the Law No 239 provides that before the first half of the new year is over, the LPAs must publish the Annual Report on Transparency in Decision-Making (for the previous year). This report must include the following: number of decisions passed during the reporting period; total number of received recommendations as part of the decision-making process; number of consultative meetings, public debates and public meetings held; number of cases when the actions or decisions of the authorities were challenged, etc. Promo-LEX monitors reported that 12 LPAs published annual reports regarding decision-making, while the other 23 did not (see Chart 13). 20

22 Briceni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Ocnița Rîşcani Soroca Fălești Floreşti Glodeni Bălți Rezina Sîngerei Șoldănești Telenești Anenii Noi Căușeni Criuleni Dubăsari Chișinău Ștefan Vodă Călărași Hînceşti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Strășeni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimișlia Leova Taraclia UTAG Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Chart 13. Publication of the annual report on the decision-making process 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Considering the aforementioned, the conclusion is that the contents of LPA websites is little in line with the law in terms of transparency in decision-making. Some of the partially positive aspects are the fact that 51.43% of the LPAs have approved and published internal rules on ensuring transparency in decision-making, 57.14% of the LPAs published the contact data of the person in charge of the decision-making process, while 71.43% published draft decisions and related documents. On the other hand, 77.14% of the LPAs did not observe the approval and publication of (quarterly/annual) draft decision development schedules. The obligation to publish announcements regarding the initiation of draft decision development was observed only by 8.57% of the LPAs, while announcements regarding the public consultation of draft decisions were published accordingly by 45.71% of the LPAs. Only 8.57% of the LPAs published on their websites the outcomes of public consultations (overview of the recommendations made by the stakeholders), but annual reports on decision-making are developed and published by only 34.29% of the LPAs. The analysis of the outcomes per LPA, represented in the charts based on the 9 types of information, proved that the authorities from Edinet d. and Balti mun. are doing best in complying with the LPA website content requirements as far as transparency in decision-making is concerned with 7 out of 9 types of information being published (see Annex 6). 21

23 III. THE ATTITUDE OF LPA TOWARDS THE REQUEST OF OFFICIAL INFORMATION The provision of official information is also an important indicator of the degree of transparency and openness of the LPA. To assess how information providers observe the obligation to ensure access to official information, Promo-LEX requested such information twice during the monitoring period. One of requests was filed by a citizen who was not involved directly in the monitoring, but did so at the suggestion of and using the content developed by a Promo-LEX monitor, while the second one was sent by the Promo-LEX monitor personally. The requests for official information were developed in line with the legal requirements and make-up recommendations in the field. In total, 71 such requests were filed (in line with the legal provisions, as the requested information was not the classified kind) 2 requests to each LPA, except for the ATUG to which 3 requests were filed. In 40 cases (56.34%), the LPA answered within the legal time limit (see Chart 14). In 21 cases (29.58%) there was no answer at all, while in 10 cases (14.08%) the answer came belatedly. We found that in almost half of the cases the answers were either incomplete or provided beyond the legal time limit. Of the 50 answers received (within or beyond the deadline), 14 (28%) were incomplete. Promo-LEX believes that these data are alarming considering the state of affairs of the transparency of LPA activity as well as the provision of quality public services. Chart 14. Attitude of the LPAs towards the requests of information (data per request) Request 1 Request 2 Request 3 Total answers Within legal time limits Belatedly No answer provided Following the methodology described above, of the 71 requests 36 were filed by Promo-LEX monitors, while 35 by citizens who were not involved in monitoring activities (see Chart 15). Chart 15 shows there are different attitudes depending on who the requests came from. Nevertheless, in case of requests from citizens not involved directly in the monitoring activities 40% of them were not answered to, while in case of monitors about 20%. 22

24 Chart 15. Attitude of the LPAs towards the requests of information (data per request subjects) Total No answer provided 7 14 Belatedly 2 8 Within legal time limits Requests of Promo-LEX monitors Citizens requests Both requests of information were answered to within the legal time limits by the following LPAs from 12 ATUs: Basarabeasca, Calarasi, Falesti, Floresti, Glodeni, Hincesti, Leova, Balti mun., Singerei, Stefan Voda, Telenesti and Ungheni. On the other hand, 5 ATUs did not respond to both requests: Briceni, Donduseni, Drochia, Nisporeni and Soroca (see Table 6). 23

25 Region North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat Table 6. Attitude of LPA towards the requests of access to official information (data disaggregated by ATUs) ATU Within legal time Belatedly No answer Total limits provided Briceni Donduseni Drochia Edinet Ocnita Riscani Soroca Balti Falesti Floresti Glodeni Rezina Singerei Soldanesti Telenesti Anenii Noi Causeni Chisinau Criuleni Dubasari Stefan Voda Calarasi Hincesti Ialoveni Orhei Nisporeni Straseni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimislia Leova Taraclia ATU Gagauzia Total As part of the monitoring, 71 requests for official information were sent to LPAs as information providers. In 40 cases (56.34%), the LPA answered within the legal time limit. In 21 cases (29.58%) there was no answer at all, while in 10 cases (14.08%) the answer came belatedly. Of the 50 answers granted (within or beyond the deadline), 14 (28%) were incomplete. The requests were sent both by Promo-LEX monitors and by the citizens not involved directly in the monitoring. In case of requests from citizens not involved directly in the monitoring activities 40% of them were not answered to, while in case of monitors about 20%. As for 12 LPAs (34.29%) the answers to both requests came within the legal time limits, but 5 of the LPAs (14.29%) did not answer to the requests for official information, which is a violation of the law in force and a sign of lack of transparency in this respect. 24

26 IV. DEGREE OF TRANSPARENCY OF THE PROCESS OF PREPARING AND HOLDING THE MEETINGS OF LPAs DELIBERATIVE AUTHORITIES Information of citizens, legally created associations and other stakeholders about starting of drawing up the decisions and about public consultations with regard to such decisions, as well as provision of equal possibilities for their participation in the decision-making process are the main principles the transparency of the decision-making process is based on as a concept itself. The degree of transparency of the process of preparing and holding the meetings of LPAs deliberative authorities was identified on the basis of the following principles and procedures: announcement of the meetings; deliberative nature of the meeting; approval of the agenda during the meetings of the deliberative authorities; free participation and observation of the meetings and publication of the adopted decisions. One of the essential elements of the engagement of the stakeholders in the decision-making process is the direct participation in the meetings of the public authorities during which the decisions themselves are discussed and adopted. In this respect, Article 13(1) of Law No 239 on the Transparency in the Decision-Making Process provides that the meetings of the public authorities aimed at decision-making are public, except in cases envisaged by the law. Law No 436 on Local Public Administration guarantees the open and public nature of the local council s meetings as well 4. Thus, Article 17 of Law No 436 stipulates that any person interested can help during the local council s meetings. The citizens, the stakeholders are entitled to: a) participate, within the law, at any stage of the decision-making process; b) have access to the information about locality s budget and use of budget resources, to the draft decisions and agenda of the meetings of the local council and mayor s office; c) suggest starting to draw up and adopt certain decisions; as well as to d) submit to the local public authorities recommendations in their own name or on behalf of certain groups of inhabitants of the respective communities, on various draft decisions subject to discussion. The respective LPAs authorities and ATUs civil servants must take necessary measures to ensure effective opportunities for participation of citizens and all stakeholders in the decision-making process. Moreover, impediments to the free access to the local council s meetings or compromising of the decision-making process by deliberate actions of hiding the information of public interest is sanctioned in accordance with the law in force. On the basis of the aforesaid, Promo-LEX Association, as a stakeholder, opted for the rights guaranteed by the legislation and assessed the degree of compliance of the procedures of preparing and holding the meetings of LPAs local councils (district, municipal, ATUG) with the legislative provisions in decision-making transparency. The following monitoring methods were used: direct observation of the meetings (assistance at the meetings) by Promo-LEX monitors, communication with LPAs officials and stakeholders, as well as analysis of online resources. Meetings were monitored by using a Monitoring Form as a working tool, which comprised the most important indicators of compliance of the procedures of meetings organisation and holding. By summing up and analysing the information gathered using these Monitoring Forms, we managed to obtain an overall picture, both in the country and by each ATU apart, regarding openness to the public of the meetings, presentation of information about the 4According to Article 1 of Law No 436 on Local Public Administration, local council is a level-one or level-two representative and deliberative authority of the population of an administrative and territorial unit, elected for purposes of solving the local issues. Likewise, according to Article 47 of Law No 436 on Local Public Administration, the provisions related to the organisation and operation of the local council, except for those related to its powers, shall be the same for the district council. 25

27 items included in the agenda, as well as regarding attendance of the involved actors at the meetings. Thus, we should note from start that during the monitored period, and namely in the first semester of 2017, LPAs deliberative authorities (Including People s Assembly of ATUG) had at least 121 meetings. At least 4 meetings are not included herein (1 in Taraclia district and the other 3 in Cantemir district). Promo-LEX monitors found out about these from indirect sources and no public information exists in their regard. In this respect, Promo-LEX monitors filed requests for information. However, as of the date of publication of this Report, no answers have been received. Lack of information about certain meetings is also an important indicator of the public and open nature of the activity of certain LPAs. In view of the above, statistics and analyses drawn up in this document derive from 121 of meetings monitored by Promo-LEX monitors. When analysing the Monitoring Forms of those 121 meetings, Promo-LEX found that 60 of them were ordinary and 61 extraordinary (see Table 7). Article 45(1) of Law No 436 on Local Public Administration stipulates that district councils shall have ordinary meetings every 3 months (valid for the Chisinau and Balti municipal councils as well). Thus, during a semester, each of those 35 representative bodies, except for the People s Assembly of ATUG, should have had 2 ordinary meetings. However, we found that local councils in 13 country s districts had only one ordinary meeting, the rest being extraordinary ones. Table 7. Nature of LPAs meetings Nature of the meeting Number of meetings Ordinary Extraordinary Deliberative No quorum Total 60 (49.58%) 61 (50.42%) 115 (95.04%) 6 (4.96%) 121 (100%) Generally, the frequency of the meetings at the district level is above the minimum provided by the law. Thus, 9 district councils had 2 meetings, other 9 district councils had 3 meetings, 8 councils had 4 meetings, while 5 councils had 5 meetings. At the same time, Balti Municipal Council had 6 meetings, Chisinau Municipal Council 9 meetings and People's Assembly of Gagauzia 3 meetings (see Table 8). 26

28 Table 8. Nature of LPAs meetings (disaggregated by ATUs) Region North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat ATU No of meetings, Total No of deliberative meetings No of ordinary meetings No of extraordinary meetings Briceni Donduseni Drochia Edinet Ocnita Riscani Soroca Balti Falesti Floresti Glodeni Rezina Singerei Soldanesti Telenesti Anenii Noi Causeni Chisinau Criuleni Dubasari Stefan Voda Calarasi Hincesti Ialoveni Orhei Nisporeni Straseni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimislia Leova Taraclia ATUG Total The deliberative nature of the meetings was analysed as well. According to Article 13 of Law on Local Public Administration, the meeting of the council is deliberative if at least two thirds of the elected council members participate in it. Of the total of 121 meetings monitored by Promo-LEX, 115 were deliberative (95.04%) and only in 6 cases there were not enough councillors to hold the meeting (see Table 7). In this situation we note very active participation of the elected council members at the country level. At the same time we would like to mention that 3 of 6 meetings lacking continuity were those of Chisinau municipal council, two of Criuleni district council and one of Dubasari district council. Announcements of the meetings. While analysing the monitored fitting criteria one by one, we should note that Article 13(2) of the same Law No 239 on Transparency in Decision-Making states 27

29 Number of meetings Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU that the announcement of a public meeting has to contain data, time and place of the public meeting, its agenda, and also should be: - published on the public authority s official website; - sent to the stakeholders via ; - posted at the headquarters of the authority, in a publicly accessible place; - broadcast by the central or local media, as may be required. When interpreting the text of the cited regulation, we can see that the legislator had left to the LPAs discretion the way and means of dissemination of information related to the announcements of meeting that are to be held. During the monitoring, Promo-LEX Association assessed which options offered by the law the administrations used the most in communication with the citizens and in making their activity known and the extent to which these were used. The assessment was made for the 3 out of 4 means of information dissemination, as follows (see Chart 16): - Announcements about the coming meetings were published on the official websites of the public authorities for 96 meetings of 121, representing 79.33%. - Announcements about the coming meetings were posted on the information boards for 56 meetings of 121, representing 46.28%. - Announcements about the coming meetings were placed in the central and/or local media for 50 meetings of 121, representing 41.32%. 120 Chart 16. Means of dissemination of announcements of meetings Website Information boards Local or central media Thus, we see the trend that was mentioned in the Report already in communication with the external environment, the priority is given to online platforms. Concurrently we found that the traditional methods of communication with the citizens were used as well. This situation was determined, among other aspects, by the efforts of the authorities of central public administration (CPA) aimed at increasing online visibility of the administrative activity. GD No 188 of 3 April 2012 on the Official Websites of Public Administration Authorities on the Internet was adopted to this end. 28

30 Regions North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South East, Chisinau Regional Office Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat ATU Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Table 9. Placement of announcements about LPAs meetings (disaggregated by ATUs) No of meetings, Total No of meetings, with the announcem ent published on the website No of meetings, with the announceme nt posted on the information board No of meetings, with the announceme nt distributed in the media Briceni Donduseni Drochia Edinet Ocnita Riscani Soroca Balti Falesti Floresti Glodeni Rezina Singerei Soldanesti Telenesti Anenii Noi Causeni Chisinau Criuleni Dubasari Stefan Voda Calarasi Hincesti Ialoveni Orhei Nisporeni Straseni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimislia Leova Taraclia ATUG Total No of meetings with the announceme nt made public within legal terms (at least 3 days) Another criterion for compliance of organising and conduct of meetings with the Law on Transparency in Decision-Making is the deadline for making public the announcements on meetings conduct (see Table 9). Article 13(2) of the Law No 239 on Transparency in Decision- Making provides that the announcement regarding the conduct of the public meeting shall be made public at least 3 working days before the date the meeting is supposed to take place. 5 It is worth mentioning that the website of Soldandesti District Council was not operating from May till June 2017, which created major difficulties in monitoring of the transparency of the decision-making process. 29

31 Number of deliberative meetings Number of meetings Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Chart 17. Meeting the time limits for publishing the announcements of meetings The time limit of 3 days is met 13 The time limit of 3 days is not met Having analysed the data collected for the 121 monitored meetings, which took place during the first half of 2017, Promo-LEX Association found that in 108 cases the deadline was observed, which represents 89.25% (see Chart 17). The approval of the agenda during the meetings of deliberative authorities in a public and open way is also a procedure inherent to a transparent administration. Both Article 13(2) of the Law on Transparency in Decision-Making, and Article 17(3)(b) of the Law on Local Public Administration guarantees the access of the general public to the topics included on the agenda and to be discussed during the meeting. Note that council meetings took place according to the agenda proposed by the mayor (like in Chisinau and Balti municipalities) or by the councillors who requested its convening. The agenda shall be amended or supplemented only at the beginning of the meeting and by vote of simple majority of councillors. Chart 18. Approval of meetings' agendas The agenda was subjected to approval 2 The agenda was NOT subjected to approval Thus, Promo-LEX monitors assessed the extent to which the councils approved the draft agenda at the beginning of the meetings and found that in case of 113 out of 115 deliberative meetings (93.04%) the councillors debated and approved jointly the agenda. As regards the other 2 meetings (Cimislia and Edinet districts), the councillors started directly to debate the topics (see Chart 18 and Table 10). 30

32 Table 10. Approval of LPAs meeting agenda (data disaggregated by ATU) Regions North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat Regional Office ATU Number of meetings Number of meetings with the draft agenda subject to approval (at the beginning of the meeting) Number of meetings with drafts included on the agenda that were to be adopted as a matter of urgency, without consulting the stakeholders Number of meetings with drafts included on the agenda that were to be adopted as a matter of urgency, with public justification Number of meetings which resulted in the publication by the deliberative authority of the adopted decisions on its website Number of days needed to publish the adopted decisions Briceni z 6 /z/ Donduseni z/5/z/z/z/ Drochia x 7 /x/z/ Edinet x/x/x/ Ocnita x/14/x/z/ Riscani /2/6/ Soroca x/x/x/10/ Balti /9/9/9/4/29/ Falesti /7/8/6/8/ Floresti z/z/z/7/ Glodeni /10/8/7/17/ Rezina /35/105/70/4 8/ Singerei /10/8/ Soldanesti /8/10/z/ Telenesti /7/7/7/ Anenii Noi /8/ Causeni z/z/14/10/6/ Chisinau /11/9/6/6/5 8 Criuleni /12/ Dubasari x/6/ Stefan Voda /7/9/ Calarasi /8/ Hincesti /6/7/6/ Ialoveni z/z/ Orhei /6/ Nisporeni /7/ Straseni /5/ Ungheni /6/6/ Basarabeasca /4/5/ Cahul /x/x/5/ Cantemir z/z/ Cimislia x/13/ Leova /4/4/ Taraclia z/ ATU Gagauzia ATUG Official Gazette, according to the procedure Total z Decision was not published. 7 x Date of publication was not possible to be identified. 8 Only the deliberative meetings (Chisinau, Criuleni, Dubasari). 31

33 Number of deliberative meetings Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU In should be taken into account that 6 out of 121 meetings did not take place due to the lack of quorum, so that when measuring the compliance indicators of the meeting process the starting point is 115 (deliberative) meetings. In specific or exceptional situations, urgent draft decisions may be subject to the drafting and adoption without respecting the steps provided for by the Law on Transparency in Decision- Making. However, the law requires that the provision of arguments on the need to adopt the decision as a matter of urgency, without consulting the citizens, associations established under the law, and stakeholders, be made public within 10 working days at most from the date of its adoption, by placing them on the public authority s website, by displaying them at its headquarter in a publicly accessible place, and/or by broadcasting by the central or local media. Out of 115 deliberative meetings monitored, 26 (22.60%) had urgent matters on the agenda (see Chart 19). Chart 19. Inclusion of urgent projects in the agenda Meetings, where urgent Of those, with publication projects were included in of necessary arguments the agenda Meetings, where urgent projects were NOT included in the agenda In 17 cases out of 26, the general public was not informed, through the ways expressly provided for by the law, about the need to include and adopt certain urgent decisions, without public consultations to this end. District councils where such situations occurred are as follows: Causeni (3 cases), Cahul (1 case), Soldanesti (2 cases), Singerei (1 case), Telenesti (1 case), Anenii Noi (1 case), Donduseni (1 case), Falesti(1 case), Criuleni (1 case), Rezina (1 case), Calarasi (1 case), Orhei (1 case), Floresti (1 case) and Leova (1 case) districts. As many as 9 ATUs Singerei (2 cases), Criuleni (1 case), Telenesti (1 case), Balti Municipal Council (4 cases) and People s Assembly of Gagauzia (1 case) justified the reason for the urgent adoption of decisions. The free participation and observation of the meetings was a key aspect of the monitoring. We would like to note that Promo-LEX monitors had free access to the meetings held by district and municipal councils, and by People s Assembly of Gagauzia, no impediments being encountered. They also had free access to the meetings with a lack of quorum, being allowed to assist and observe the work of councilors.the monitors also noted an increased activity of councils subdivisions. Thus, their representatives also attended the meetings, along with the mayors, heads of the territorial offices of the State Chancellery, as well as of other institutions. Publication the adopted decisions. Public authorities are obliged to ensure the access to the adopted decisions by publishing them as prescribed by the law, by placing them on the official website, by displaying them at their headquarters in a publicly accessible place and/or by broadcasting by the central or local media, as appropriate, as well as by other means established by law (Article 15 of 32

34 Number of deliberative meetings Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU the Law on Transparency in Decision-Making). The council secretary is responsible for informing the public about the adopted decisions. It is worth noting that neither the Law on Transparency in Decision-Making, nor the Law on Local Public Administration contain rules that would explicitly regulate the way and the term during which the LPAs are to publish the adopted decisions. Article 20 of the Law on Local Public Administration stipulates that only the decisions of the local council shall be signed, within 5 days from the date of the meeting, by its chairperson and countersigned by the council secretary. Although Article 47 of this Law stipulates that the provisions related to the organisation and operation of the local council, except for those related to its powers, shall be the same for the district council, then Article 46, which is about the adoption of decisions by the district council, does not provide for a deadline until which the aforementioned responsible persons must sign the decisions adopted by the council. Note that that Parliament amended Article 46. However, these amendments will enter into force on 28 October The new legal provisions set the same five-day deadline when the chairperson of the meeting and the secretary of the district council shall sign and countersign the decisions respectively. They also provide for a new deadline of maximum five days after signing during which these decisions shall be made public. No such deadline was in place when we published this Report, this is why we will expressly indicate after how many days the decisions were published, if published. Thus, of 115 conducted and monitored deliberative meetings, only in 96 cases the LPAs published the adopted decisions (see Chart 20). This happens in 83.47% of the meetings, and we consider this an alarming trend for transparent decision-making Chart 20. Publication of adopted decisions Meetings that resulted in published decisions 19 Meeting that DID NOT result in published decisions At the same time, in the absence of a concrete legal deadline, the councils, according to monitors data, published the adopted decisions within different time-frames, starting with 0 (immediately after the meeting, Leova district), which is the fastest publication, and ending with 105 days which is the latest publication (Rezina district). The average publishing time in the country is 10.5 days (see Table 10). It should be mentioned that a large number of LPAs websites do not indicate the date when the decisions were published. Hence, it is difficult to see after how many days the decisions were published, otherwise than the daily monitoring of the website. It is practically impossible to determine the number of days by a post-factum analysis of the meetings that took place a few months ago. Thus, the average indicated above was calculated on the basis of the number of 78 cases where the publication time could be identified. 33

35 Note in this context that the information about the time when decisions were published does not refer to the ATUG, since the decisions of People s Assembly are published in an official local publication according to a separate procedure. As mentioned earlier, we found another issue related to the publication format of the decisions. We believe it is necessary to expressly regulate how published decisions and their content should look like. During the monitoring, we found decisions published in Word, without signatures, as well as in PDF scanned copies of decisions already signed by the chairperson of the meeting and the secretary of the council. On the basis of the findings of the monitoring of transparency in preparing and holding the meetings of LPAs deliberative authorities, it is worth mentioning that the transparency in the local decisionmaking process is mostly maintained. According to Promo-LEX monitors, during the first semester of 2017, LPAs deliberative authorities had at least 121 meetings (the information about at least 4 meetings held by Cantemir and Taraclia LPAs was not provided). Of these, 60 were ordinary and 61 extraordinary. As much as 115 meetings were deliberative (95.04%) and only in 5 cases there were not enough councillors to hold the meeting. All of the meetings were accessible to Promo-LEX monitoring. The announcements were published mainly through the online channels on the website in case of 96 meetings out of 121 (79.33%). In LPAs communication with the external environment we see the same trend of the increasing role of online means. The term of 3 working days for publishing the announcement was observed in case of 108 meetings (89.25%). The fact that there was a great number of meetings at which decisions were adopted but not made public is one of the less positive aspects we would like to stress out. Thus, of 115 monitored deliberative meetings that were conducted, only in 79 cases (68.69%) LPAs published the adopted decisions. Also, of 26 meetings with urgent matters to be examined on the agenda, in 17 cases (65.38%) the general public was not informed about the need to include and adopt certain urgent decisions, which is a violation of the legal norms. 34

36 V. TRANSPARENCY OF THE BUDGET PROCESS. ELEMENTS OF PARTICIPATIVE BUDGETING The budget process at ATU level is an inherent part of decision-making within the LPAs. The budget process is a sequence of budget drafting, reviewing, adopting, executing and reporting activities. ATU s budgets are a distinct part of the national public budget. The direct powers of LPAs executive and deliberative authorities in the field of budget process are described in: the Law No 436 on Local Public Administration, Law No 397 on Local Public Finance and Law No 181 on Public Finances and Budgetary Fiscal Accountability. According to Article 19 of the Law No 397, LPAs shall develop and approve their own budgets, according to the legal provisions, on the basis of the budget classification and methodology approved by the Ministry of Finance. The law also stipulates that the executive authorities (district president, mayor of municipality and governor of ATUG) shall be responsible for developing and implementing the budgets, and representative and deliberative authorities shall be responsible for their review and approval (district and municipal councils, People s Assembly). As regards the public nature of ATU s budgets, the law stipulates that the budgets approved by these representative and deliberative authorities, as well as corrections to these budgets, shall be made publicly available. According to the Law on Transparency in Decision-Making, the draft budgets and the annual reports on budget implementation shall also be public. As methodological tools, interviews with LPA and stakeholders representatives, as well as the review of the monitored LPAs websites were used. The interviews were meant to assess the degree of involvement of those interviewed in participative budgeting. LPAs actions to involve the stakeholders in the budget process and stakeholders actions for their direct participation in the budget process, were also assessed. On the other hand, websites review allowed to see the real transparency of the budget process on the basis of some specific indicators: publication of the draft budget and of the adopted budget, publication of budget rectifications and of the implementation reports. The legal framework analysis shows, on the one hand, that the procedures and the duties are describes in detail and, on the other hand, makes it regrettable that the Republic of Moldova does not have a law that would regulate and implement the concept of participative budgeting. Although the legal norms do not regulate participative budgeting, and building on the international experience and the existing good practices, including the ones from the Republic of Moldova (Chisinau and Balti), Promo-LEX considers it necessary to promote and monitor these procedures for citizen participation and local democracy. The concept of participativebudgeting is a more complex one and is not limited to involving citizens in budget adoption. The participative budgeting obliges public institutions to listen to and to take into account citizens remarks when making decisions related to money appropriation. In other words, participative budgeting occurs when citizens benefit from mechanisms allowing them to influence the way public money is distributed and spent. We speak about a participative budgeting if budget documents are publicly consulted, debates with citizens on budget issues are held, and citizens are involved in the monitoring of the way public money is spent. At the same time, the participative budgeting implies not only the consultation of citizens, but the fact that they decide directly, in a democratic way, what is happening with a part of the budget under discussion. To observe the democratic principles, the authorities must ensure the equal participation of all those affected, regardless of their level of education, their material situation or other criteria. 35

37 Interviewed stakeholders Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Under these circumstances, an heuristic exercise was meant to see what do LPAs and stakeholders know about the concept of participative budgeting (see Table 11). Following the self-assessment, most of the respondents gave positive answers 77.14% of LPAs and 66.67% of stakeholders. However, the detailed analysis of the answers offered denies the positively quantitative picture. Nonetheless, we must admit that few of those who responded affirmatively could give details and showed complex knowledge of the concept. Most of those interviewed see the participative budgeting as a fragmented picture, limiting citizen participation only to consulting the draft budget and omitting their involvement in public money distribution. Table 11. Level of knowledge of the concept of participative budgeting (self-assessment) YES NO DK/WA Total Stakeholders 70 (66.67%) 25 (23.81%) 10 (9.52%) 105 (100%) LPA civil servants 27 (77.14%) 8 (22.86%) 0 35 (100%) In this context, it is certainly worth highlighting the positive cases of Chisinau and Balti which appropriated identifiable financial resources and started to consult citizens about the appropriation of these budgets. To this end, the councils adopted decisions approving the mechanisms that offer citizens the opportunity to come up with public benefit projects and to ask for budget financing/co-financing. For the 2017 budget year Chisinau Municipal Council approved MDL 1 million, and Balti Municipal Council MDL 120 thousand. To receive these resource, 53 projects were submitted in Chisinau, and 12 in Balti. The degree of stakeholders involvement in public consultations on ATU budget development has been another issue of interest for Promo-LEX monitors. The discussions highlighted that only 21 (20%) of 105 interviewees reported that they had taken part in the public consultation of the ATU draft budget for the current year (see Chart 21). Promo-LEX believes that this is an insignificant result, especially since stakeholders include not only public associations and the media, but also business entities (see Annex 1) Chart 21. Participation of stakeholders in public consultations on local budgets Participated in public consultations Did not participate in public consultations The issue of using public consultation tools while developing the budgets was analysed by interviewing both civil servants, and civil society representatives (see Chart 22). According to the number of persons who confirmed their participation in the process, the opinion of 35 interviewees representing the LPAs and of 21 interviewees representing the stakeholders was taken into account. 36

38 Chart 22. Public consultation tools used in the budgeting process Opinion polls Public hearings Focus group surveys Working groups, workshops and seminars Official website Exchange of written/information materials Stakeholders options LPAs options On the basis of Chart 22, we may draw the following conclusions: - basically, the following tools were used: the exchange of written/information materials, website, working groups, public hearings and focus group surveys. However, Promo-LEX believes that the number of stakeholders involved in the process was insignificant; - not always the comparison of results shows a convergence between those of LPAs, on the one side, and of stakeholders, on the other side. For instance, 5 LPAs (14.29%) Falesti, Riscani, Drochia, Soroca and Edinet districts mentioned that they used the focus group surveys as tools. On the other side, just one representative of the civil society (from Telenesti district) mentioned about the participation in such an exercise, where such sociological exercises did not take place, according to the interviews conducted with LPAs servants. In the same train of thoughts, 19 of 35 LPAs (54.29%) reported they conducted working groups, workshops and seminars to discuss publicly the budget process, and only one representative of the stakeholders confirmed this fact; - thewebsite was the most popular communication tool in the context of consultations on drafting and approving the budget, both in the opinion of LPAs (65.71%) and of stakeholders (61.90%). However, according to Promo-LEX, the stakeholders checked out the website to find out information, rather than to register proposals and suggestions. Only one representative of an NGO from Cahul said he had proposed recommendations to improve the draft; - it is worth mentioning the organization of and participation in public hearings. Although 19 LPAs (54.29%) reported that they organised public hearings regarding the budget process, note that only 10 (47.6%) out of those 21 interviewees attended these hearings. - According to the LPAs, the exchange of written/information material between the authorities and the stakeholders involved only in 6 out of 35 LPAs (17.14%). As many as 10 representatives of the civil society (47.62%) confirmed such an exchange.however, none of the interviewees reported having submitted written proposals or recommendations to improve the draft. - none of the LPAs conducted opinion polls to assess the public opinion on the budget process. The stakeholders confirmed this. Nonetheless, a Balti newspaper conducted an opinion poll assessing the level of interest of the citizens in the development of the local budget. This is an example of good practice. The publication on the LPA website of the draft budget and the approved budget, budget corrections and the report on budget implementation (see Table 12) was another aspect of the transparency of the budget process monitored by Promo-LEX. 37

39 Region North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat ATU Publication on the website of the draft budget to start public consultations Table 12. Published budget process (data disaggregated by ATU) Publication of the adopted budget on the website of the authority Publication on the website of the decisions amending the local budgets Publication on the website of the report on the annual budget implementation Briceni NO NO NO NO Donduseni YES YES YES YES Drochia YES YES YES YES Edinet YES NO NO YES Ocnita YES NO NO NO Riscani YES YES YES Partially Soroca YES YES YES YES Balti YES YES YES YES Falesti YES YES YES YES Floresti NO NO NO Partially Glodeni YES YES YES YES Rezina Partially YES YES YES Singerei NO YES YES Partially Soldanesti Partially Partially Partially Partially Telenesti NO YES YES YES Anenii Noi NO YES YES YES Causeni NO Partially YES YES Chisinau NO YES NO YES Criuleni YES YES YES YES Dubasari YES YES YES YES Stefan Voda YES YES YES YES Calarasi NO YES YES YES Hincesti NO YES YES YES Ialoveni NO NO NO NO Orhei NO YES YES YES Nisporeni NO YES YES YES Straseni YES YES YES YES Ungheni NO YES YES YES Basarabeasca NO YES YES NO Cahul Partially YES YES NO Cantemir Partially NO NO NO Cimislia NO NO YES NO Leova NO NO YES NO Taraclia NO YES NO NO ATU Gagauzia YES YES YES Partially The draft budget, just like the other draft decisions, will go through all required stages to ensure a transparent drafting. Article 10 of the Law on Transparency in Decision-Making provides that the local authority shall ensure the access to draft decisions and related documents by publishing them on their websites, by ensuring the access to its headquarters, and by sending these documents via or other available means at the request of stakeholders. The draft decision and related documents are published on the official website of the responsible public authority at least for the period during which recommendations are made and examined. 38

40 Number of public authorities Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU In this regard, Promo-LEX monitors reviewed LPAs websites to see if the draft local budgets meant to be subject to public consultations were published. Thus, of 35 authorities: 14 (40%) published the draft budgets on their website, 17 (48.57%) did not and 4 (11.43%) did it partially (see Chart 23). Speaking of the latter, we should mention that although the drafts were published, a number of procedural mistakes was made, i.e. the website was mostly inoperable; they were published only a day before the public consultation; the draft was published without the announcement about the organisation of public consultations; consultations took place without the draft being published Chart 23. Publication of the draft budget on the website for public consultation Was published on the website Was not published on the website With certain deficiencies After all phases are gone through, the adopted document is also to be published. Thus, Article 15 of the Law on Transparency in Decision-Making provides that public authorities shall ensure the access to the adopted decisions, by publishing them in a similar way to the drafts proposed for debate. Following the monitoring, Promo-LEX found that 25 (71.43%) of 35 administrative units published the budgets on their official website; 8 (22.86%) did not; and 2 (5.71%) did it along with some technical issues (see Chart 24). Chart 24. Publication of the adopted budget on the authority's website The budget was published on the website The budget was not published on the website Published with certain deficiencies If during the year there is the need to make corrections to the already adopted budget, they should also be made public. Table 12 shows that: in 26 (74.29%) out of 35 ATUs, the deliberative authorities published on their website the decisions on budget corrections; in 8 (22.86%) cases 39

41 Number of public authorities Number of authorities Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU these decisions were not published and in one case the decisions were not available due to technical issues with the website (see Chart 25). Chart 25. Publication of the decisions on the local budgets' correction on the website Was published on the website Was not published on the website 1 Published with certain deficiencies At the end of each budget year, the territorial-administrative unit must develop a report on budget implementation, which is made public. This obligation is provided for by Article 29(4) of the Law on Local Public Finance which stipulates that the annual report on ATU s budget implementation for the reporting year shall be reviewed and approved by the representative and deliberative authorities by 15 February of the following reporting year. As regards the publication of the implementation report, Promo-LEX found that (see Table 12): 21 (60%) of the 35 LPAs published the report, 9 (25.71%) LPAs did not, while in case of other 5 (14.29%) authorities either the website was not working or the report was discussed during the meetings without being published on the website (see Chart 26). Chart 26. Publication of the annual budget implementation report on the website The budget implementation report was published on the website The budget implementation report was not published on the website Published with certain deficiencies or partially Taking into account the information above, we note that the involvement of citizens in developing local budgets and especially in distributing financial resources is low. It s true that an appropriate regulation and dissemination of information and popularisation of the concept of participative budgeting among citizens and local administrations, are needed in order to ensure an active involvement and the implementation of participative budgeting. 40

42 Although about 70% of LPAs and stakeholders representatives stated they understood the concept of participative budgeting, after analysing the answers we saw that the awareness is truncated and superficial, narrowed down to the idea that the citizens only participate in consulting the draft budget, omitting their involvement in the distribution of the public money. Having analysed the stakeholders interview questionnaires regarding the transparency of the local budget process, we saw that only 21 (20%) of 105 interviewees reported that they had taken part in the public consultation of the ATU draft budget for the current year. The study of the interviews qualitative aspects shows, however, that their engagement consisted more in the information, rather than in providing a feedback. As regards the publication of ATU s budget development, review, approval and reporting phases on authorities website, we should mention that while 25 (71.43%) LPAs of the 35 administrative units published the approved budgets on their official website, only 14 (40%) LPAs published the draft budgets. To ensure the transparency of the decision-making process, it is essential to publish not only the end product, but the initial one as well, on the basis of which the public consultation is supposed to be carried out. We also note that only 21 (60%) LPAs published the Budget Implementation Report. To conclude, according to monitors, the following authorities complied with all the requirements and reflected all budget phases: Criuleni, Donduseni, Drochia, Dubasari, Falesti, Glodeni, Soroca, Straseni, Stefan Voda and Balti. 41

43 VI. INTEGRITY AND CONFLICT OF INTERESTS Integrity should be a descriptor of any administrative modernization and consolidation of public authorities. Actually, integrity is the main principle of professional conduct of civil servants and/or persons holding public dignity positions. As far as administrative decision-making is concerned, an incorruptible conduct is a particularly important drive in connection with the use of public goods and finances. As part of the issue, the conflict of interests means a conflict between the public duty and the personal interests of a public official. A conflict of interests arises when the interests of a public official, as a private person, influence or may influence inappropriately the fulfilment of his/her official obligations and responsibilities. In order to ensure the transparency of local public authorities from the point of view of professional integrity, Promo-LEX monitors looked into the following aspects of the issue: an Institutional Ethics Code in place; the publication of CVs of heads of the authorities concerned; the submission for publication of the declaration of assets and personal interests; the anti-corruption hotline in place.the following work tools were used: review of LPA s and of National Integrity Agency swebsites, and of other public information sources. At the same time, when needed, discussions with the duty bearers within the monitored LPAs were held. The existence of an Institutional Code of Conduct within the LPAs was the first aspect of the issue addressed by Promo-LEX monitors. Note that the law does not demand of the authorities to have such a document. At the same time, Promo-LEX believes that the Law No 25 on the Code of Conduct for Civil Servants does not cover all the relations and processes of LPAs. This is why we think it is absolutely reasonable to urge LPAs, including on the basis of this monitoring, to take into account the opportunity to promote and observe the principles of professional integrity through an LPAs Institutional Code of Conduct. It is important to note that no public authority had such a document during the first phase of monitoring. The publication by the LPAs of the CVs of the heads of authorities is the second relevant aspect of the monitored issue. According to Article 15 of the Law on the Official Websites of Public Administration Authorities on the Internet, information on the heads of public administration authorities shall be published on the official website of the public administration authority. Chart 27. Publication of CVs by the level-two LPAs Yes Partial No In this respect, the CVs of district presidents and vice-presidents; of mayors and deputy mayors of municipalities (level-two administrations); of the Governor of UTAG and of the president of 42

44 People s Assembly were analysed. The overall picture shows that only in the case of 16 ATUs (45.71%) out of 35, CVs are published according to the categories mentioned (see Chart 27). The fact that in the case of 12 LPAs (34.29%) no CV is published on the website is a rather alarming indicator of the decision-making transparency of LPA leadership. Table 13 reflects the picture per ATU. Table 13. Aspects of professional integrity and conflict of interest (data disaggregated by ATUs) Region North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center- South East, Chisinau Regional Office Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat ATU Existence of the Institutional Code of Conduct Publication of CVs of LPAs heads Publication of statements Existence of anticorruption hotline Publication of statement of personal interest Briceni NO NO NO NO NO Donduseni NO NO NO NO NO Drochia NO NO NO NO NO Edinet NO NO NO NO NO Ocnita NO YES NO NO NO Riscani NO YES NO NO NO Soroca NO NO NO NO NO Balti NO YES NO NO NO Falesti NO Partially 9 NO NO NO Floresti NO Partially 10 NO NO NO Glodeni NO YES NO NO NO Rezina NO YES NO NO NO Singerei NO YES NO NO NO Soldanesti NO Partially 11 NO NO NO Telenesti NO YES NO YES NO Anenii Noi NO YES NO NO NO Causeni NO NO NO NO NO Chisinau NO YES NO YES NO Criuleni NO Partially 12 NO NO NO Dubasari NO YES NO NO NO Stefan Voda NO YES NO NO NO Calarasi NO YES NO NO NO Hincesti NO NO NO NO NO Ialoveni NO Partially 13 NO NO NO Orhei NO YES NO NO NO Nisporeni NO NO NO NO NO Straseni NO Partially 14 NO NO NO Ungheni NO YES NO NO NO Basarabeasca NO Partially 15 NO NO NO Cahul NO NO NO NO NO Cantemir NO NO NO NO NO Cimislia NO YES NO NO NO Leova NO YES NO NO NO Taraclia NO NO NO NO NO ATU Gagauzia NO NO NO NO NO According to GD No 188 on the Official Websites of Public Administration Authorities on the Internet and Regulation on the Functioning of Anti-corruption Hot-lines System, approved by Law 9CV of district deputy-president not published. 10There is general information about the district president and deputy-president, but it is not adjusted according to CV requirements. 11The website of Soldanesti DC did not operate during May-June. However, according to Promo-LEX monitors, the CVs could be viewed during the active period. 12CV of district president is not published. 13CV of district deputy-president not published. 14CV of district president is not published. 15CV of district president is not published. 43

45 No 252, LPAs shall place the information on anti-corruption and/or information hot-lines on their official website. Promo-LEX monitors examined whether an anti-corruption hot-line was placed on the public authority website and found that only two ATUs (Chisinau and Telenesti) have such information (see Table 13). Even if the GD provides for indicating the information on the opening of specialized anti-corruption and/or information hot-lines, which would involve the possibility for the LPAs to replace an anti-corruption hot-line with an information hot-line, operating as an anticorruption hot-line as well, we believe it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the anticorruption phrase while showing the respective contact number within the anti-corruption module (point 15 of GD No 188). In conclusion, Law No 133 on the Declaration of Assets and Personal Interests provides for the obligation of the persons holding public dignity positions (district presidents and deputy presidents; mayor general, mayor and deputy mayors; ATUG Governor and president of the People s Assembly) to fill in and submit the Declaration of Assets and Personal Interests. The Declaration is submitted annually by 31 March, and the National Integrity Authority (NIA) publishes the declarations received on its official website within 30 days from the declarations submission deadline. According to Promo-LEX monitors, on 30 June 2017, no declaration of the persons holding public dignity positions, mentioned in the Monitoring Report, was published on NIA website. This information was also missing from the LPAs websites. The monitored LPA authorities do not have an Institutional Code of Conduct. Given the current social conditions, as well as the fact that the documents providing for duty-based ethics for public positions do not fully cover LPAs work, we believe it is appropriate for the authorities to develop and implement such documents. Only two ATUs (Chisinau and Telenesti) have an anti-corruption hotline on their website. According to Promo-LEX monitors, 16 (45.71%) out of 35 LPAs published the CVs of the following persons: district presidents and deputy presidents; mayors and deputy mayors (Balti and Chisinau municipalities); Governor and the Speakerof the ATUGPeople's Assembly.In 12 (34.29%) cases, no such document was published on the authority s website. Also, as regards the aforementioned persons holding public dignity offices, on 30 June 2017, no declaration of assets and personal interests, contrary to the legal norms, was published on the NIA website. 44

46 VII. TRANSPARENCY OF COMPETITIONS FOR CIVIL SERVICE POSITION Transparency of competitions for civil service positions is another important aspect of Promo-LEX monitoring. A civil servant is an individual appointed to a civil service position under the provisions of the law, who in turn, represents all the duties and obligations established under the law in order to achieve the prerogatives of public power. The Law No 158 on Civil Service and Statute of Civil Servants and the Regulation on Competitionbased Employment in Civil Service, approved by GD No 201 Implementing the Law No 158, provide for the requirements for the employment in a civil service position. It should be mentioned that according to Article 4 of the Law No 158, its provisions and, respectively, those of the Regulation on Competition-based Employment in Civil Service, are applicable also to the civil servants from LPAs offices, from the autonomous territorial units with special status and their decentralized services. In other words, civil servants from the structures subordinated to the LPAs are appointed on the basis of competitions organized in accordance with the aforementioned law and regulation. Note, in this context, that district administration hires its technical staff on the basis of the Labour Code, i.e. no competition needs to be organized. According to Article 29 of the Law No 158, the competition for employment in a vacant or temporarily vacant civil service position is based on the principles of open competition, transparency, competence and professional merits, and on the principle of citizens equal access to civil service. The public authority starting a competition is under the obligation to make public all the conditions of the competition in a periodical publication, on its website, and on the information board at the LPA s headquarters, in a visible and publicly accessible place, at least 20 calendar days before the date the competition is to take place on. In this respect, note that the Regulation on Competition-based Employment in Civil Service has a number of details in this regard and provides additionally that, if the public authority does not have a website, the information about the conditions of the competition may be published in a widely circulated newspaper. If public authorities consider it necessary, they shall ensure the dissemination of information about the conditions of the competition by other alternative forms of advertising. Also, point 9 of this Regulation stipulates that the information about the conditions of the competition must contain: a) name and address of the public authority organising the competition; b) the vacant civil service position; c) purpose and main tasks pertaining to that civil service position, according to the job description; d) conditions for participation in the competition; e) documents to be submitted; d) references of the competition; g) deadline for documents submission; h) means of documents submission; i) telephone, and postal address, person in charge of providing additional information and receiving documents. To assess the degree of transparency and publicity of the announcements about the organisation of competitions for employment in civil service, Promo-LEX monitors used three basic methodological tools. First, they interviewed the representatives of district administrations and learned how many competitions did they organise, to what extent and by what ways the announcements about the organisation of competitions were made public. Second, they assessed authorities websites in order to see how transparent those procedures were. And third, they conducted direct observation, consulting, when needed, the information boards of the authorities and the local media. Thus, the data provided by the interviewed LPA servants show that only four out of 35 LPAs did not organise competitions for employment in civil service Causeni, Dubasari, Taraclia and Telenesti districts (see Chart 28). A total of 95 competitions were organized in the other 31 ATUs. The fewest were organised by Drochia, Falesti, Floresti, Ialoveni, Ocnita, Orhei, Singerei district 45

47 Authorities that organized competitions Number of public authorities Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU administrations and Chisinau municipality (one each), and the most by Edinet and Stefan Voda administrations (ten). Chart 28. Public authorities that organised competitions for employment in civil service Public authorities that organised competitions 4 Public authorities that did NOT organise competitions As regards the dissemination of announcements about the organisation of competitions for employment in civil service, it should be noted that, unlike announcements related to board meetings where the law allows administrations the way to distribute information, the former are to be published by all means simultaneously website, a periodical publication and the information board at the public authority headquarter, in a visible and publicly accessible place. Out of 31 administrations that organised competitions 30 published the announcements on their website (96.77%), and only one did not do so (see Chart 29). As many as 25 out of the 31 councils (80.66%) used periodical publications (local and district newspapers) as a communication platform. The other six ignored this tool. Eventually, the information boards situated near the headquarters of public authorities, being at first sight the simplest and most accessible method of distributing information, were used by 26 councils (83.87%). Five district administrations did not put announcements on information boards. Chart 29. Means of dissemination of announcements of competitions Announcement and conditions were published on the authority s website Announcement and conditions were published on the authority s website Announcement and conditions were posted on the authority s information board The analysis of data disaggregated by ATU on the observance of legal provisions of advertising the competition for employment in civil service within LPAs shows that 21 (67.74%) out of 31 administrations observed the legal requirements related to employment transparency (see Table 14). 46

48 Region North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat Table 14. Publication of announcements and conditions of employment in civil service (data disaggregated by ATU) ATU The announcement and conditions of the competition for employment were published on the website The announcement and conditions of the competition for employment were published in some periodical publications The announcement and conditions of the competition for employment were published on the information boards situated near the LPAs Briceni YES YES YES Donduseni YES NO YES Drochia YES YES NO Edinet YES YES YES Ocnita YES NO NO Riscani YES YES YES Soroca YES YES YES Balti YES YES YES Falesti YES YES YES Floresti NO NO YES Glodeni YES YES YES Rezina YES YES YES Singerei YES YES YES Soldanesti YES YES YES Telenesti Competitions were not Competitions were not Competitions were not organised organised organised Anenii Noi YES YES NO Causeni Competitions were not Competitions were not Competitions were not organised organised organised Chisinau YES YES YES Criuleni YES YES NO Dubasari Competitions were not organised Competitions were not organised Stefan Voda YES YES NO Calarasi YES YES YES Hincesti YES YES YES Ialoveni YES YES YES Orhei YES YES YES Nisporeni YES YES YES Straseni YES YES YES Ungheni YES YES YES Competitions were not organised Basarabeasca YES NO YES Cahul YES YES YES Cantemir YES NO YES Cimislia YES YES YES Leova YES NO YES Taraclia Competitions were not Competitions were not organised organised ATU Gagauzia YES YES YES Competitions were not organised Promo-LEX Association found that the transparency of competitions for employment in civil service is moderately positive. According to the monitors, most of the LPAs that organised competitions met the conditions related to the competition advertising by placing the announcement and the conditions on their website, in the media and on the information boards. In particular, the placement of information, by information sources, ranged from 80.65% (the media) to 96.77% (website). In general, we may deduce that only 67.74% of the LPAs used all three communication channels established by law (website, the media and information boards). 47

49 VIII. TRANSPARENCY OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES Transparency of public procurement is pivotal in ensuring responsible and effective public money management by authorities, including LPAs. The plenary monitoring of decision-making transparency is possible only by taking into account the extent to which people and stakeholders know about the procurement procedures and the goods purchased by the public authorities. The procurement process is regulated by Law No 131 of 3 July 2015 on Public Procurements, GD No 667 Approving the Regulation on the Activity of the Procurement Working Group, GD No 1419 Approving the Regulation on Planning of the Public Procurement Contracts, as well as by other regulatory acts approved in order to enforce this law. According to the legal provisions mentioned above, public procurements can be grouped into two categories: - high-value public procurements (contracts, the estimated value of which is above MDL for goods and services and above MDL for works); - low-value public procurements (contracts, the estimated value of which is under MDL for goods and services and under MDL for works). The Public Procurement Agency (PPA) ensures the monitoring, ex-post control, and inter-sectoral coordination in the area of public procurements. The Public Procurement Bulletin (PPB) and the State Register of Public Procurements Information System (SRPP IS) are among the important working tools PPA uses in the procurement process. The announcements of intent regarding the high-value procurements are published both in PPB and SRPP IS. In addition, the contracts of highvalue procurements concluded following the procurement procedures, and the status of each procedure are published in the SRPP IS. PPA monitors the low-value public procurements through annual reports received from the contracting authorities. The reports are not published on PPA s website. They are to be published on the websites of the contracting authorities, along with other information relevant for the procurement process (procurement plans, announcements of intent, etc.) The monitoring methodology looked into whether the following types of documents specific to procurement procedures were published: the annual procurement plan; announcement of intent; procurement contracts; annual report; working group reports. The following working methods were used: review of websites of the LPAs, and of PPA, and communicating with LPAs civil servants, as needed. As regards LPAs, the current law obliges them to approve annually/quarterly the Procurement Plan, 16 and to publish it on their website 17. Subsequently, when procurements start, institutions are also required to publish the announcements of intent regarding the scheduled procurements. According to Promo-LEX monitors, only 20 of 35 LPAs approved their Procurement Plans for Of them, only 15 institutions published these Plans on their official website (see Chart 30). 16Government Decision No 1419 of Approving the Regulation on Planning of the Public Procurement Contracts, point Government Decision No 188 of on the Official Websites of Public Administration Authorities on the Internet, point

50 Chart 30. LPAs' Procurement Plans Yes No Approved Procurement Plan Plan published on the website Along the same line, note that only 15 LPAs published the announcements of intent regarding the scheduled procurements on their official websites in the first half of 2017 (see Table 15). Region North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center- South East, Chisinau Regional Office Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat Table 15. Ratio between the announcements of intent and the procurement contracts concluded ATU Announcements of intent regarding the scheduled procurements High-value public procurement contracts, based on SRPP data High- and low-value public procurement contracts, based on monitors data 18 Briceni Donduseni Drochia Edinet Ocnita Riscani Soroca Falesti Floresti Glodeni Balti Rezina Singerei Soldanesti Telenesti Anenii Noi Causeni Criuleni Dubasari Chisinau Stefan Voda Calarasi Hincesti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Straseni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimislia Leova Taraclia ATU Gagauzia TOTAL Monitors provided these data on the basis of LPAs website review. Note that both information on high- and low-value contracts LPAs concluded is to be put up on the website. Nonetheless, the transparency of this information is low. 49

51 Anenii Noi Briceni Călărași Criuleni Dondușeni Drochia Edineţ Floreşti Hinceşti Nisporeni Ocnița Sîngerei Strășeni Șoldănești Ștefan Vodă Taraclia Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Of them, five authorities published just one announcement of intent, and two LPAs two announcements. Therefore, 20 LPAs did not publish any announcements of intent on their official website. However, note that 16 of the authorities that published no announcement of intent have entered into procurement contracts (see Chart 31 developed on the basis of SRPP data and forms filled in by Promo-LEX monitors). Chart 31. LPAs' procurement contracts, without announcements of intent published on the website Promo-LEX monitors SRPP It should be mentioned, however, that Article 27(4) of the Law on Public Procurements stipulates that LPAs shall publish an announcement of intent in the Public Procurements Bulletin regarding the high-value public procurements (not low-value public procurements). According to SRPP IS data, LPAs have entered into 189 procurement contracts during the first semester of 2017 (see Table 16) and made 15 amendments to existing contracts (see Table 17). Table 16. Contracts entered into by LPAs during the first semester of 2017 Contract type Request for price Amount of the Public tender Total quotations contracts Other Procurement contract ,256, Basic ,852, Grand Total ,108, Table 17. Amendments to the contracts entered into by LPAs during the first semester of 2017 Amendments to the contracts Request for price quotations Public tender Total Amended amount Increase in contract s value ,072, Decrease in contract s value ,667, We found that the value of contracts was amended four times. It increased within the first days after the contracts were signed (see Table 18). Note that Article 72(4) of the Law on Public Procurements stipulates that in the case of public procurement contracts with continuous execution concluded for a period of time that is longer than one year it shall be allowed to periodically adjust the value according to the procedure established by the Government, by taking into account the changes in the prices of the cost price components of goods, works or services that are the object of the contract. At the same time, point 35 of the Regulation on the Activity of the Procurement Working Group stipulates that the Working Group (WG) may decrease or increase the quantity of goods and/or services originally contracted, in duly justified cases and in accordance with the law in force, without changing the unit price or other terms and conditions of the offer and 50

52 of the awarding documents. The increase in the volume of the contracted goods/services shall be allowed only if it does not exceed 15% of the initially contracted volume. Table 18. Increase in the price of the newly concluded contracts No LPA Contract Contract Object of the Date of Amount of date amount procurement increase increase % increase 1 Rezina ,221, Building refurbishments , % 2 Rezina , Building refurbishments , % 3 Ocnita , Building refurbishments , % 4 Straseni , Foodstuffs , % In the context of the above, we believe that the increase in the value of procurement contracts in a very short period from their conclusion with the provider gives rise to concerns regarding the correctness of the respective procurement process. Table 19 reflects the object of LPAs procurements, identified on the basis of SRPP IS data (and not on the basis of LPAs official websites), and Annex 7 reflects the details for each LPA that entered into procurement contracts. Thus, 65% of the total amount of LPAs procurements targeted the repair of roads and buildings in the region, and 12% the purchase of oil products. At the same time, 5% of the amount of procurements was for vehicles. Most of them are used for business purposes, and the purchase price per unit is different: from MDL 239 thousand (Singerei LPA) to MDL 530 thousand (Edinet LPA). Object of the procurement Number of contracts Table 19. Object of LPA procurements Amount of the contracts % of the total amount of procurements Vehicles 16 (19 units) 4,701, % Goods and services 62 19,059, % Road repair 13 22,446, % Repair/construction of buildings/goods 54 45,002, % Oil products 44 12,898, % Total ,108, % According to Article 6(c) of the Law on Public Procurements, one of the principles regulating the public procurement relationships is ensuring of the competition and prevention of unfair competition in the sphere of public procurements, and according to Article 67(a), the Contracting Authority shall cancel on its own initiative the procedures to award the public procurements contract, provided such decision is made prior to the day of notifying the results of applying the public procurements procedure, and in case when it was impossible to ensure a satisfactory competition level, i.e. the number of bidders is lower than the minimum required number of bidders set by the law for each procedure. Note that the procurements involving a public tender and a request for price quotations do not provide for the participation of a mandatory number of bidders in order to ensure the validity of the procurement, unlike other procurement procedures. For instance, the procurements involving a closed tender provide for the participation of minimum five bidders, those involving a competitive dialogue minimum three bidders, and those involving negotiations minimum three bidders. As far as LPAs are concerned, all procurement contracts entered into during the monitored period were concluded on the basis of a public tender or a request for price quotations. According to SRPP 51

53 Anenii Noi - 1 Călăraşi - 1 Căuşeni - 1 Chișinău - 13 Drochia - 1 Dubasari - 2 Edineţ - 2 Făleşti - 1 Ialoveni - 5 Leova - 1 Nisporeni - 2 Strășeni - 2 Şoldăneşti - 2 Ştefan Vodă - 1 Telenești - 1 Million Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU IS data, depending on the number of bidders who participated in procurements and who signed a procurement contract, the following were found (see Chart 32): - 19% (36 contracts) of LPA s procurement contracts were awarded as a result of the assessment of a single bid submitted. The total value of these contracts is MDL 13.8 million (see Chart 33). The object of these contracts was: oil products (ten contracts), road repair (four contracts), goods and services (ten contracts) and vehicles (12 contracts); - 16% (30 contracts) were awarded as a result of the assessment of two bids submitted to the tender; - 29% (54 contracts) were awarded as a result of the assessment of two bids participating in the tender; - 36% (69 contracts) were awarded as a result of the assessment of two bids participating in the tender. Chart 32. Procurement contracts depending on the number of bidders bid 2 bids 3 bids 4 and more bids Therefore, Promo-LEX Association found a high number of cases when procurement contracts were awarded on the basis of a very small number of bids participating in the tender, which does not ensure an effective competition in the procurement process. Chart 33. Value of contracts awarded as a result of one single bid (MDL million) Table 20 reflects the details of the procurement contracts entered into by each LPA according to the number of bidders participating in the procurement. 52

54 Table 20. Procurement contracts entered into according to the number of bids (data disaggregated by ATU) Region LPA 1 bid 2 bids 3 bids 4+ bids Total North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South- East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat Briceni Donduseni Drochia Edinet Ocnita Riscani Soroca Balti Falesti Floresti Glodeni Rezina Singerei Soldanesti Telenesti Anenii Noi Causeni Chisinau Criuleni Dubasari Stefan Voda Calarasi Hincesti Ialoveni Nisporeni Orhei Straseni Ungheni Basarabeasca Cahul Cantemir Cimislia Leova Taraclia ATU Gagauzia Total In addition to the signed contracts, during the first semester of 2017, the LPAs had 45 uncompleted procurements in progress. Thus, the following were found (see Chart 34 and Table 21 for details per LPA): - 3 canceled procurements (Donduseni, Rezina, Soldanesti LPAs); - 25 procurements are at the signing phase of the contracts; - 4 procurements are at the tender assessment phase; - 13 procurements are completed, with the contract signing process being initiated. 53

55 Procureme nt phase Anenii Noi Report No 1 - Monitoring The Transparency Of The Activity Of Level-Two LPA And Gagauzia ATU Basarabeasca Cahul Calarasi Causeni Table 21. Uncompleted procurements (data disaggregated by ATU) Cimislia Donduseni Drochia Dubasari Cancelled Bids assessment Contract implementa tion Completed procureme nt Total Note that of the 45 procurements uncompleted by LPAs, 42 were for the repair of roads and buildings (including the 3 canceled ones), 1 vehicle purchase, 1 goods and services, and 1 oil products. Edinet Falesti Hincesti Leova Nisporeni Rezina Singerei Straseni Soldandesti Ungheni Total Chart 34. Cancelled and pending LPAs' procurement procedures Cancelled Assessment of bids Contract execution Completed procedure 13 According to point 24 of the GD No 665 Approving the Regulation on Low-value Public Procurements, LPAs are required to develop and submit annually to the PPA, by the 1 st February of the following year, including in an electronic version, a report on the low-value public procurement contracts entered into and registered during the reference period (the estimated value of goods and services is under MDL , and of works under MDL ). According to Promo-LEX monitors, 12 LPAs developed the report. Of them, only 5 published these reports on their official website (see Chart 35). Given the above, Promo-LEX Association found that the transparency of low-value public procurements made by the LPAs is low. 54

56 Chart 35. Drawing up and publication of the LPAs' annual reports Documents exists Document published Yes No According to point 34 of the Regulation on the Activity of Procurement Working Group, WG must monitor the implementation of public procurement contracts and develop quarterly/biannual and annual reports to this end. These reports that must include information about the implementation phase of the contractual obligations, the causes of the failure to do so, the complaints submitted and the penalties applied, references to the quality of contract implementation, etc. will be published on the contracting authority s website, and in the absence thereof on the official website of the central authority to which it is subordinated or of the level-two local public administration, including the ATUG. According to Promo-LEX monitors, in most of cases, the quarterly/biannual and annual reports of the WG were not approved and therefore could not be found on the LPA s official website (see Chart 36). Thus, only 7 LPAs approved quarterly reports (2 were published on the website), 6 LPAs approved biannual reports (1 was published on the website) and only 7 LPAs approved annual reports (2 were published on the website). Table 22 shows the situation per ATU. 55

57 Table 22. Published WG Reports (data disaggregated by ATU) Region ATU Approved Quarterly Report Published Quarterly Report Approved Biannual Report Published Biannual Report Approved Annual Report Published Annual Report North, Edinet North-East, Balti Center-South- East, Chisinau Center-South- West, Calarasi South, Comrat Briceni NO NO NO NO NO NO Donduseni NO NO NO NO NO NO Drochia NO NO NO NO NO NO Edinet NO NO NO NO NO NO Ocnita NO NO NO NO NO NO Riscani NO NO NO NO NO NO Soroca NO NO NO NO NO NO Falesti YES NO YES NO YES NO Floresti NO NO NO NO NO NO Glodeni YES NO YES NO YES NO Balti YES YES YES YES YES YES Rezina YES NO YES NO YES NO Singerei YES NO YES NO YES NO Soldanesti NO NO NO NO NO NO Telenesti NO NO NO NO NO NO Anenii Noi NO NO NO NO NO NO Causeni NO NO NO NO NO NO Criuleni NO NO NO NO NO NO Dubasari NO NO NO NO NO NO Chisinau YES YES NO NO YES YES Stefan Voda NO NO NO NO NO NO Calarasi NO NO NO NO NO NO Hincesti YES NO NO NO NO NO Ialoveni NO NO NO NO NO NO Nisporeni NO NO NO NO NO NO Orhei NO NO NO NO NO NO Straseni NO NO NO NO NO NO Ungheni NO NO NO NO NO NO Basarabeasca NO NO NO NO NO NO Cahul NO NO NO NO NO NO Cantemir NO NO NO NO NO NO Cimislia NO NO NO NO NO NO Leova NO NO YES NO YES NO Taraclia NO NO NO NO NO NO ATU Gagauzia NO NO NO NO NO NO 56

58 As a result, Promo-LEX Association notes a low transparency of the monitoring and reporting of the implementation of public procurement contracts concluded by the LPAs. Chart 36. WGs' quarterly/biannual and annual reports on procurements Approved quarterly report of the WG 2 32 Published quarterly report of the WG 6 29 Approved biannual report of the WG 1 34 Published biannual report of the WG 7 28 Approved annual report of the WG 2 33 Published annual report of the WG Yes No On the basis of the data provided, we conclude that the SRPP IS determines the constant transparency of LPAs procurement process. LPAs official websites ensure a low transparency of procurements, this being limited to the partial publication of the Procurement Plans (15 of 35 LPAs), announcements of intent (15 of 35 LPAs) and the contracts awarded (12 of 35 LPAs). In addition, the LPAs do not publish the reports on low-value public procurements (only 5 out of 35 LPAs published these reports) and, respectively, the quarterly/biannual and annual reports on the monitoring of the implementation of public procurement contracts (2 out of 35 LPAs) on their official website. At the same time, Promo-LEX Association found a high number of cases when procurement contracts were awarded on the basis of a very small number of bids participating in the tender, which does not ensure an effective competition in the procurement process. Thus, 19% of the procurement contracts (total amount MDL 13.8 million), concluded by the LPAs after public tenders/requests for price quotations, were signed on the basis of a single bid participating in the tender (one business entity submitted the bid). The objects of these procurement contracts were the following: oil products, repair of roads, vehicles, and other goods and services. 57

59 RECOMMENDATIONS To the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova 1. Amend the current legislation on local public finances and budgetary process or adopt a law on participative budgeting obliging the representatives of local public authorities to implement the concept and to involve the citizens in the decision-making related to the distribution of budget funds. 2. Supplement the law on public procurements with provisions establishing a minimum mandatory number of bidders required for procurements by public tendering and by requests for price quotations. Limit to the minimum the possibilities of contracting suppliers on the basis of a single bid participating in the tender. 3. Review the legislation concerning public procurements by regulating the minimum term from the signing of the contract where its value can be changed. Prohibit the changes in the contract s value in relatively short periods from the time of conclusion of the contract in relation to its total duration. To the National Integrity Agency 4. Publish in legal terms the declarations of assets and personal interests of persons holding public dignity positions, mentioned in the Monitoring Report (district presidents and deputypresidents; mayors and deputy mayors (Balti and Chisinau municipalities); Governor and the Speaker of the ATUG People's Assembly). To the Local Public Authorities (general recommendations) 5. Develop online communication tools (website and social media) with the external environment in order to ensure the transparency of decision-making, in line with the current law and on the basis of stakeholders preferred communication options. Further use of traditional communication channels: information board, newspapers and broadcasters. 6. Develop and implement policies/actions informing the citizens about their rights in the context of implementing the principles of transparency of decision-making, including at LPA level. 7. Increase the communication between LPAs and local and national civic associations by using the targeted information mechanism by LPAs. Send the information about decision-making in public authorities to the specified stakeholders in the ways indicated by the stakeholders (via or sending letters to the address of stakeholders or to the one indicated by the requester of such information). 8. Ensure a higher accessibility and comfort of LPAs buildings for more vulnerable citizens: persons with special needs, older persons, parents with small children, etc. In this context, it is important to draw the attention to the following aspects: the possibility that a disabled person could access and move inside the buildings, placing a sufficient number of chairs on the hallway; fitting a separate room to breastfeed children; fitting user-friendly WC for disabled persons, etc. 9. Develop the documents and start the procedures on the observance of transparency principles in the case of the anti-corruption module by publishing on the authority s website who is the responsible person, the integrity plan, the report on the implementation of the Integrity Plan, the report on the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, information on the opening of specialized anti-corruption and/or information hot-lines, and other relevant public information. 10. Publish on different platforms the announcements related to the conduct of public hearing (website, information boards, the media, and ), with focus on the current and prospective importance of online platforms. Use the targeted informing of stakeholders via the Publish the decisions passed in due time (up to 5 days after the date of their signing). Even if the legal provisions that expressly lay down the publication deadline will only come into force on 28 October 2018, we believe that the procedures must already be implemented during this time. 58

60 12. Increase the transparency of public procurements by substantiating why they need to be done and the Technical Specifications on the basis of LPAs personal needs (for instance, purchase of vehicles: to determine the difference in price of service vehicles within different LPAs). 13. Ensure that the information relevant to the procurement process is fully published on the LPAs websites: procurement plans, announcements of intent, awarded contracts, annual reports, reports on the monitoring of the implementation of contracts, etc. 14. Comply with the legal provisions requiring that the provision of arguments on the need to adopt the decision as a matter of urgency, without consulting the citizens and other stakeholders, be made public within 10 working days at most from the date of its adoption. To the Local Public Authorities (practical recommendations) 15. The following LPAs should publish on their website the internal rules of the procedures of informing, consulting and participation in the decision-making process: Ocnita, Floresti, Glodeni, Rezina, Soldanesti, Singerei, Telenesti, Anenii Noi, Hincești, Orhei, Nisporeni, Cantemir, Cimislia, Taraclia, ATUG. 16. The following LPAs should publish on their website the information about the first name, last name, position and contact number of a person responsible for the decision-making process: Causeni, Orhei, Calarasi, Nisporeni, Ialoveni, Cantemir, Cahul, Cimislia, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova, ATUG. 17. The following LPAs should publish on their website the programs on the development of draft decision, specifying the drafts that will be subject to public consultations: Ocnita, Briceni, Donduseni, Floresti, Glodeni, Rezina, Soldanesti, Stefan Voda, Dubasari, Anenii Noi, Causeni, Chisinau, Criuleni, Hincești, Orhei, Calarasi, Nisporeni, Ungheni, Ialoveni, Straseni, Cantemir, Cahul, Cimislia, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova, ATUG. 18. The following LPAs should publish on their website the announcements about starting the process of decision drafting: Ocnita, Briceni, Riscani, Soroca, Donduseni, Drochia, Floresti, Rezina, Soldanesti, Singerei, Balti, Falesti, Telenesti, Stefan Voda, Dubasari, Anenii Noi, Causeni, Chisinau, Criuleni, Hincesti, Orhei, Calarasi, Nisporeni, Ungheni, Ialoveni, Cantemir, Cahul, Cimislia, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova. 19. The following LPAs should publish on their website the announcements regarding the organisation of public consultations: Ocnita, Briceni, Floresti, Soldanesti, Singerei, Stefan Voda, Anenii Noi, Causeni, Criuleni, Hincesti, Orhei, Nisporeni, Ungheni, Ialoveni, Cantemir, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova, ATUG. 20. The following LPAs should publish on their website the draft decisions and related documents, as well as the decisions adopted: Briceni, Hincesti, Nisporeni, Taraclia. 21. The following LPAs should publish on their website the results of public consultations: Ocnita, Briceni, Edinet, Soroca, Donduseni, Drochia, Floresti, Glodeni, Rezina, Soldanesti, Singerei, Falesti, Stefan Voda, Dubasari, Anenii Noi, Causeni, Chisinau, Criuleni, Hincesti, Orhei, Calarasi, Nisporeni, Ungheni, Ialoveni, Straseni, Cantemir, Cahul, Cimislia, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova, ATUG. 22. The following LPAs should publish on their website the annual report of the public authority on transparency in decision-making: Ocnita, Briceni, Riscani, Soroca, Floresti, Glodeni, Rezina, Soldanesti, Dubasari, Anenii Noi, Causeni, Criuleni, Hincesti, Orhei, Calarasi, Nisporeni, Ungheni, Ialoveni, Cantemir, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova, ATUG. 23. Provide responses, complete and within the legal time limit, to the requests for official information received from the citizens of: Ocnita, Briceni, Edinet, Riscani, Soroca, Donduseni, Drochia, Rezina, Soldanesti, Dubasari, Anenii Noi, Causeni, Chisinau, Criuleni, Orhei, Ialoveni, Straseni, Cahul, Cantemir, Cimislia, Taraclia. Ensure the equal treatment of the requests for access to information received from the citizens who are not involved in the monitoring of LPAs work and from Promo-LEX monitors. 24. The following LPAs should observe the deadline for publishing the announcements on the conduct of all meetings: Ocnita, Edinet, Floresti, Rezina, Causeni, Chisinau, Ialoveni, Cahul, Cantemir, Cimislia, Taraclia. 59

61 25. The following deliberative authorities should publish on their website the information on the decisions adopted at all meetings conducted: Ocnita, Briceni, Donduseni, Drochia, Floresti, Soldanesti, Dubasari, Causeni, Chisinau, Criuleni, Ialoveni, Cantemir, Taraclia. 26. The following LPAs should publish the information on the decisions adopted, indicating the date (day) of their adoption: Ocnita, Edinet, Soroca, Drochia, Dubasari, Cahul, Cimislia. 27. The following authorities should publish on their website the LPA s draft budget to start public consultations: Briceni, Floresti, Singerei, Telenesti, Anenii Noi, Causeni, Chisinau, Hincesti, Orhei, Calarasi, Nisporeni, Ungheni, Ialoveni, Cimislia, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova. 28. The following LPAs should publish on their website the adopted budget: Ocnita, Briceni, Edinet, Floresti, Ialoveni, Cantemir, Cimislia, Leova. 29. The following LPAs should publish on their website the report on the annual budget implementation: Ocnita, Briceni, Ialoveni, Cahul, Cantemir, Cimislia, Taraclia, Basarabeasca, Leova. 30. Develop and publish the Institutional Ethics Codes on LPAs website. 31. The following LPAs should publish the CVs of their leadership (president and deputy president): Briceni, Edinet, Soroca, Donduseni, Drochia, Floresti, Causeni, Hincesti, Nisporeni, Cantemir, Cahul, Taraclia, ATUG. The following LPAs should publish the CVs of district presidents: Criuleni, Straseni, Basarabeasca. The following LPAs should publish the CVs of district deputy presidents: Falesti, Ialoveni. 32. Floresti LPA should publish on its website the announcement and conditions of the competition for employment in civil services. 33. The following LPAs should publish in periodical publications the announcement and conditions of the competition for employment in civil services: Ocnita, Donduseni, Floresti, Basarabeasca, Leova. 34. The following LPAs should put on the information boards in their neighbourhood the announcement and conditions of the competition for employment in civil services: Ocnita, Drochia, Stefan Voda, Anenii Noi, Criuleni. 35. The following LPAs should publish on their website the announcements of intent regarding the scheduled procurements: Anenii Noi, Briceni, Calarasi, Criuleni, Donduseni, Drochia, Edinet, Floresti, Hincesti, Nisporeni, Ocnita, Singerei, Straseni, Soldanesti, Stefan Voda, Taraclia. 36. Most of the LPAs, except for Balti LPA, should develop and publish all quaterly/biannual/annual reports of the public procurement working groups. To the stakeholders 37. Develop and implement projects concerning the organisation of campaigns to inform citizens about the rights they have in ensuring the transparency of LPAs decision-making process. 38. Get involved more actively in the process of consulting draft decisions, not only by informing, but also by providing a feedback to the LPAs. 39. Conduct public awareness campaigns to explain the citizens all the benefits of the participative budgeting for the ATU they belong to. 40. Participate more actively in the working groups activity on public procurements. 60

62 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PPA Public Procurement Agency para. paragraph NIA National Integrity Agency NGO Non-Government Organization CPA Central Public Administration LPA Local Public Administration Art. Article PPB Public Procurement Bulletin Mr. Mister WG Working Group GD Government Decision let. Letter mun. Municipality No Number t. Town p. Point d. District RM Republic of Moldova v. Village sem. Semester SRPP IS State Register of Public Procurement Information System ATU Administrative Territorial Unit ATUG Administrative Territorial Unit of Gagauzia 61

63 ANNEXES Annex 1. Profile of the interviewed stakeholders and their attitude to LPA Authorities Very interested Table 1.1. Trust in level-one LPAs/level-two LPAs (following the interview of stakeholders) Relatively Disinterested DK/WA Total interested Mayor Local council Executive level-two LPA 102 Deliberative level-two LPA Table 1.2. Occupational profile of the interviewed stakeholders Field of stakeholders activity Number of representatives Share Civic associations % The media % Business entities % Civic activists % Total % 19 Including ATUG authorities. 62

64 Annex 2. Legal framework - Law No 239 of 13 November 2008 on Transparency in the Decision-Making Process. - Law No 982 of 11 May 2000 on Access to Information. - Law No 436 of 28 December 2006 on Local Public Administration. - Law No 764 of 27 December 2001 on the Administrative-Territorial Organisation of the Republic of Moldova. - Law No 158 of 4 July 2008 on Civil Service and Statute of Civil Servants. - Law No 847 of 24 May 1996 on Budgetary System and Budgetary Process. - Law No 181 of 25 July 2014 on Public Finances and Budgetary Fiscal Accountability. - Law No 397 of 16 October 2003 on Local Public Finance. - Law No 25 of 22 February 2008 on the Code of Conduct for Civil Servants. - Law No 133 of 17 June 2016 on the Declaration of Assets and Personal Interests. - Law No 252 of 25 October 2013 Approving the Regulation on the Functioning of Anticorruption Hot-lines System. - Law No 131 on 3 July 2015 on Public Procurements. - Government Decision No 967 of 9 August 2016 on the Mechanism for Public Consultations with the Civil Society in Decision-Making Process. - Government Decision No 188 of 3 April 2012 on the Official Websites of Public Administration Authorities on the Internet. - Government Decision No 201 of 11 March 2009 Implementing the Law No 158 of 4 July 2008 on Civil Service and Statute of Civil Servants. - Government Decision No 667 of 27 May 2016 Approving the Regulation on the Activity of the Procurement Working Group. - Government Decision No 1419 of 28 December 2016 Approving the Regulation on Planning of the Public Procurement Contracts. - Government Decision No 665 of 27 May 2016 Approving the Regulation on Low-value Public Procurements. 63

65 Annex 3. Map of Promo-LEX regional offices 64