TI BiH hosted the Social Integrity Workshop for Brcko District

Transparency International BiH organized today the Social Integrity Workshop, in order to contribute to the strengthening of institutions of the District. The goal of the workshop was presentation of existing integrity mechanisms by the institutions, as well as institutional capacities for the fight against corruption, in order to improve and encourage a more efficient identification and implementation of anti-corruption measures.

The workshop is a part of the project “Strengthening the Integrity of Brcko District Institutions”, that Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) implements with the support of the Office of the High Representative (OHR). Therefore, one of the initial speakers was Celine Bardet, the OHR Head of Legal Department for Brcko District. One of the participants was also Mirsad Djapo, the Mayor of Brcko District.

Srdjan Blagovcanin, Executive Director of TI BiH, and Aleksandra Martinovic, the member of Board of Directors of TI BiH, presented the project and made a presentation of integrity system, preliminary results of citizens’ perceptions on corruption poll, and other relevant research by Transparency International. TI BiH representatives expressed their concerns by Corruption perceptions Index (CPI) results, according to which Bosnia and Herzegovina is the most corrupt country in the region, and also by the results of citizens’ perceptions research in the District. The great majority of the questioned expressed their dissatisfaction by the level of accountability of the District authorities, while as the most corrupt institutions in the District they singled put political parties, sanitation, media, legislative and executive powers. What is especially alarming is that 70% of the questioned thinks that the corruption was present in the District during the privatization process, while more than 50% of them defined privatization process as unsuccessful so far.

Aleksandar Draganic, from EDA Development agency gave a lecture under the title “Policies and Strategies: Where and how?”. This was followed by the discussion on the existing integrity mechanisms of institutions (Government, Parliament, judiciary and Brcko District Police), and on the anti-corruption institutional capacities, where representatives of those institutions also participated.

The whole project of “Strengthening the Integrity of Brcko District Institutions” aims at identifying necessary corrections of the legal framework, as well as improvement of the organization, functioning and mutual cooperation of the institutions in the field of anti-corruption activities, all based on research, studies and best practices. The fundamental point of the project is a comprehensive research of citizens’ perceptions on the level of corruption in Brcko District, results of which were presented at the workshop, and within the second phase of the project there will be a qualitative research undertaken as the Study of the Brcko District Integrity System.