THE GOVERNMENT's newly announced programme is weak in fighting corruption, claims the non-governmental organisation Transparency International Slovakia (TIS) in a statement released on August 4.
Although corruption is perceived in Slovakia as one of the most significant problems by 27 percent of the population (agency Focus, March 2006 survey), TIS says that the government did not reflect this concern in its programme, and that fighting corruption is not a priority of the government since it only forms a small part of the overall programme. "Individual measures are only formulated in a general way," according to TIS.
TIS also criticised the new government because it did not commit itself to restricting the immunity of MPs, increasing the transparency in the financing of political parties and in failing to put a system of control in place covering conflicts of interest. "It's not clear what measures the government wants to introduce to increase transparency concerning the utilization of EU funds and providing state subsidies.
In a similar vein, the TIS statement indicates the programme only makes limited progress in correcting the problems surrounding public tenders. The news agency TASR reported.
TIS evaluated in a positive light the government's interest in continuing to publish court decisions, its effort to make recordings of court cases available and its effort in making the complete record of court cases available to the public.
