Bulletin, Volume 10
In this issue
The corruption has deeply entered the sport arena. Even the top sports are affected. The World Football Federation had to suspend two of its members from the top management after it was revealed that they sold their votes during the process of selecting the location for the next football world championship. Stimulated by the more frequent corruption scandals on its territory, Switzerland, the country in which many world organizations have their headquarters, announced stricter anti-corruption regulations. In Kosovo, the government had to cancel the agreement with one US company, which was selected through direct negotiation without the participation of other companies, but only after the affair was disclosed by the media. The world scientists have detected and found evidence to support the claims of the relatedness of corruption with other societal phenomena in the country, such as the level of economic development, respect of human rights and claim that corruption is symptom of deep economic and social diseases in the society.
In this issue of the monthly newsletter, we present the sections on anticorruption and public procurement from the latest European Commission’s Progress Report for Macedonia. In both these areas, the EC has observed certain progress, emphasizing that the corruption is wide spread and continues to pose a serious problem. In terms of the public procurement, the observations from last year still apply. However, the special focus this year is placed on the lack of capacity of the public administration in this area and the need for strengthening the system of legal remedies in public procurement.
In addition, we report the address of the President of the Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), Drago Kos, on the corruption in public procurement at the Public Procurement Conference held in Skopje in October. He suggests that for combating corruption in public procurement the good law meeting the requirements of the European Union directives is needed, but not sufficient for protecting the public funds from corruption. According to Kos, anti-corruption specialists should be involved in the public procurement in order to analyze the existing legislation from the aspect of combating corruption. Kos recommends to those making decisions about public finances to be as careful and responsible as when they are making decisions about their personal finances. We also present few of the numerous media reports published about the conference.
As the criminal becomes more organized and widespread, spilling over the boundaries of a state, even a region, it is necessary for the investigative reporters to become more organized. However, due to various reasons, it seems this type of journalism is facing difficult days. Therefore, the investigative reporters, non-governmental organizations and donors that support these networks from Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia met this November in Chisinau in Moldova, sharing their experiences and discussing the future possibilities for enhancing the cross-boundary cooperation in investigative reporting.
We hope that with this issue of the monthly newsletter by providing you diverse topics we will encourage you to think of taking measures for reducing the corruption in our society, which according to the scientists is interrelated and depends on many factors in the society.