As a result of the publication of “Transparometri” in the municipality of Suhareka, a roundtable discussion was held which was also attended by: The Chairman of the Parliament, the Vice Mayor, the members of the Municipal Assembly of Suhareka and the representatives of the municipal executive.

 

This meeting aimed to increase the level of transparency in the municipality of Suva Reka which during the period January – June 2015 has resulted with a low level of municipal transparency, attaining only 34.1% of the overall estimation based on the four pillars of evaluation: Office of the Mayor, the Municipal Assembly, Municipal Finance and Transparency in Consultation with Public (each of the four pillars contains 11 indicators). In this period, the municipality of Suhareka resulted weaker in the financial transparency attaining only 5 out of 35 possible points.

The Vice-Mayor of Suhareka Mr.Rexhep Kuqi at the beginning of this meeting emphasized the importance of transparency at the municipal level and by referring to the findings of KDI he maintained that generally they are close to the average, however, there is room for much improvement. This result may be due to the limitation of the number of additional staff engagement in information office, especially the lack of an authorized person in placing the documents on the website of the municipality.

 

The municipal officials in Suhareka claimed that the reasons behind this low level of transparency in the Suhareka municipality are also technical issues which must reflect the purpose of improvement. The Chairman of the Municipal Assembly Mr. Refki Gega said that a constant coordination between certain sectors is needed in order to increase the level of transparency. Regarding public hearings for the budget, the directors and other officials of the municipality of Suhareka stated that citizens do not respond to these kinds of meetings.

According to the Assembly members in the Suhareka municipality, the lack of reporting by the Mayor in the assembly for the first half of this year and the lack of discussion of the auditor’s report need to be improved. Nevertheless, the municipal officials of Suhareka claimed that this document will serve as a guide for improving the indicators that are missing and promised they will make a greater effort in the financial transparency.

 

Some of KDI’s recommendations for the Suhareka Municipality in terms of increasing the level of transparency were: to encourage the participation of citizens in public hearings for the budget with the help of civil society; to address the formal requirements regarding the spending and budgets of municipal enterprises; to publish the draft budget for the next year; to publish the procurement plan and the audit report of the previous year on the website.