Proactive publication of information and achievement of a higher degree of openness of public institutions, including also a fiscal transparency, are preconditions for strengthening accountability and efficiency at all the levels of governance as well as for a stronger influence of citizens on the process of planning and decision making, and strengthening of trust of the citizens in the work of the government institutions in BiH.
It was pointed out today at the conference in Sarajevo where the experiences of the regional countries , members of the initiative “Open Government Partnership – OGP”, were presented, organised by the Transparency International in BiH (TIBiH) and in cooperation with the coalition of non-governmental organisations in charge of implementation of that initiative.
Executive director of the TIBiH, Lejla Ibranović, said that the focus of the gathering was on the institutions of the federal level of administration, including also the findings of the research related with estimation of readiness of those institutions for a practice of proactive publication of information, based on the principles and the standards of the Open Government Partnership.
She stressed the importance of capacity strengthening for promotion and improvement of the principles of transparency, accountability and integrity of public institutions, stating that the said research demonstrated that open data policy was not sufficiently present, and that political support was missing as well as commitment of the government to have the institutions publish data of public interest.
– It is necessary to strengthen the institutions at the federal level, as well as their capacities to act more transparently towards the public. Also, we would like to draw attention to the fact that the open government initiative is not an additional obligation or the project of civil society, but, above all else, an incentive to the institutions to affirm and accept the principles this initiative is based on, to which BiH committed, also by various strategic documents in the process of joining the European Union, these being the principles proclaimed also in the Reform agenda for BiH 2015 – 2018 – said Ibranović in the media statement.
According to her, the implemented research demonstrated that the institutions reactively publish data, although basic data on their work, reports on execution of the budget and data on systematisation of jobs should be published on web-pages, which implied use of new technologies for inclusion of citizens in the process of decision enactment.
Research, among other things, demonstrated that we should additionally act on education of citizens, public servants, media and all other relevant actors to request, to a greater extent, certain data from the competent institutions.
In a review of the regional context, Dina Bajramspahić, from the Institute “Alternativa” from Podgorica, reminded that Montenegro joined the initiative Open Government Partnership in 2012, and that currently there were ongoing activities on preparation of the second action plan for implementation of that initiative.
She estimated that this process, unlike other reform processes, included citizens, approximating the changes to them, stating that legally defined provision for proactive transparency in Montenegro was insufficiently applied, and/or that the Freedom of Information Act was arbitrarily applied “only for what the state administration estimated that was less painful for them”.
The significance of active participation in materialising the principles of open government initiative was pointed out by the programme manager of the Sarajevo Foundation Centre for Advocating Citizen Interests, Mirjana Sirćo, stressing that gatherings of this kind should have a significantly bigger turnout of the decision makers, and that it would greatly contribute to understanding the initiative itself.
She added that the citizens must be informed on the programmes of work and the strategies, including also data on the fiscal transparency, and expenditure of public money.
Senior expert associate for public relations in the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office, Vedrana Faladžić, said to the press that the PARCO was actively involved from the beginning in implementation of the said initiative, which, among other things, can be certified by the documents it drafted, them being the Policy of proactive transparency in BiH and the Standards of proactive transparency.
That initiative, as she said, was fully harmonised with the concept of public administration reform strategy in BiH and the Reform Agenda, and the intention of opening public institutions to the citizens.
The participants of the conference were presented with the Open Government Partnership Initiative itself and with the advantages it offers, with review of the regional experiences, and the manners of improvement of communication with the citizens were analysed with the objective of “opening” the government and strengthening transparency, accountability and efficiency in their work.
Among other things, the proposals of measures for the first action plan of BiH for implementation of the initiative Open Government Partnership were discussed, which our country joined in 2014, on which the civil society organisations work in cooperation with the institutions in BiH.