Bulletin, Volume 9

In this issue

Corruption in the private sector and its combating is an increasingly debated topic worldwide, a topic that was tackled in one of the prior issues of the monthly newsletter. Faced with a corruption scandal in the United States following a revelation that bribes worth millions of dollars were paid to governments all over the world in order to get public procurement agreements, renowned car company Daimler will now open a special executive post focusing on the company’s observance of laws and business ethic in its operations.

In Croatia, the country’s customs head and, until recently, the ruling party’s treasurer has been detained under the suspicion that he made state institutions hire a PR company without conducting a public procurement procedure.

In neighboring Serbia, an Internet news agency has published a so-called corruption pricelist, i.e. a list of public services and bribes paid for their obtaining. Data have been taken from citizens’ input at the recently opened e-portal for reporting of corruption cases “Pištaljka“ (Whistle). According to this pricelist, completing studies without taking exams costs EUR 16,000 of bribes, to legalise a house – EUR 20,000, to employ a doctor – up to EUR 8,000. The list shows that doctors are most corrupt, with economists claiming the economic crisis increases corruption.

On 28 September the world marked the day for free access to public information, or the so-called “International Right to Know Day“. This is an occasion for analysis of how much Macedonia abides by international standards for free access to public information. The analysis also offers several specific suggestions for solutions that can be applied in our country for the purpose of more comprehensive achievement of this civil right, which is one of the most essential.

Let's refer to one more analysis – complaints in the public procurements process. The main remark resulting from this analysis is that decisions of the State Commission for Public Procurements' Complaints regarding complete annulment of proceedings is on the rise, which demonstrates increase of violations and abuses of the Law on Public Procurements by the contracting parties. In almost half of the accepted complaints by economic operators, the State Commission for Public Procurements' Complaints passed decisions for annulment of procedures, which is the case when serious violations of the Law on Public Procurements are established.

Faced with a large number of petitions from citizens in the field of urbanism and construction, the State Commission for Public Procurements' Complaints decided at the beginning of October to arrange a public debate with representatives of all parties concerned, in order to produce conclusions and recommendations for reduction of corruption in this field. These recommendations involve some recommendations that the Center for Civil Communications promoted several years ago.

Finally, we are presenting several cartoons on topic corruption, created for our monthly by two eminent domestic cartoonists, Jordan Pop Iliev and Petar Jankov.

The ninth MAK issue can be found here