“The responsibility of the administration towards the citizens and within the system itself is an indispensable element of efficient and good administration which we strive for. Therefore, improving the level of responsibility, together with strengthening the transparency at all levels of the government, is one of the special goals of the recently adopted Public Administration Reform Strategy in Serbia for the next ten years,” the State Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Maja Mačužić Puzić, has said at the panel “Why transparency is important for good governance in Serbia”, within the First Plenary Session of the World Bank’s Joint Initiative for Transparency and Accountability in the Republic of Serbia.
She has pointed out that during the first five years of implementation of the Strategy, developed through the accompanying Action Plan, the focus shall be on creating an appropriate environment and the necessary preconditions for achieving significant progress in this area.
According to her, since 2015, the institutions in the Republic of Serbia have been opening data in their possession, while the Open Data Portal has been established, which contains data from public institutions, making them available to citizens, the private and non-governmental sector, as well as to all the interested individuals who want to draw information from this source. Moreover, Mačužić Puzić has pointed out to good practices when it comes to such cooperation, bearing in mind that the Civil Budget Guide of the Republic of Serbia is published annually, and that more and more local self-governments apply this practice, while some include their citizens in deciding on local budgets.
As she has stated, some of these results were achieved within the Open Government Partnership initiative, in which Serbia has been participating since 2012, and through which the State and the civil sector work together in order to improve the transparency, accountability and public participation in decision-making.
Speaking about the current steps undertaken by the Ministry within its competencies, in order to strengthen the responsibility in public administration, Mačužić Puzić has pointed to the preparation and adoption of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance. According to her, this law shall, inter alia, improve the realization of the public’s right to access information of public importance in the Republic of Serbia, which improves the level of transparency of public administration bodies, but also encourages their greater responsibility towards citizens.
“By coordinating the entire process of Public Administration Reform and passing important laws to improve the transparency and accountability of public administration in the Republic of Serbia, our Ministry has made important initial steps towards further systemic development in this area. We still have challenges ahead of us that we are ready to discuss, in order to find common solutions for their successful overcoming, but I certainly think that we have made significant progress compared to the previous years,” Mačužić Puzić has concluded.
In January 2020, the World Bank, together with its local partners, had established the Joint Initiative for Transparency and Accountability in the Republic of Serbia, with the aim of establishing a platform for dialogue between the public, civil and business sectors. The aim of today’s session was to inform a wider group of partners and stakeholders about the mission of the Initiative and to strengthen the public commitment of the main actors.
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