TI BiH supports the initiative of Web portal svevijesti.ba against corruption in education

Transparency International BiH (TI BiH) entirely supports the initiative of the Web portal svevijesti.ba which offers students, and everyone who owns information, to report corruption at universities all around Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The initiative titled “Get involved – report the corruption at universities” is a useful contribution to the overall fight against the corruption and indicates that the time has come for the citizens themselves to take an action on this issue, since the authorities are not doing the same.

Unfortunately, the threats sent to the editors of the portal after they published incriminating information, show that it is still not safe to speak publically about the corruption in our country and are a clear evidence of how much the corruption is rooted in our society. “TI BiH has also been the subject of pressure of the powers that be, which again confirms that everyone who speaks publically about corruption find themselves very soon as the target of those whose interest is not to talk about that”, emphasized Srdjan Blagovcanin, executive director of TI BiH and added that TI BiH, within the Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre (ALAC) project received a great number of complaints on the corruption in education, but in the majority of cases the authorities did not take any action upon the received complaints.

Considering all this, it is highly important for actions like these to be insisted upon, in order to acknowledge the fact that corruption can be eradicated only if the public gets the opportunity to speak freely about it and to report it.

Police operation “Index” that was undertaken in Croatia, result of which was the arrest of university professors involved in corruption, is the proof that, action on the basis of proper information, there really are mechanisms that can sanction corruptive actions and warn the public about them.
Therefore, TI BiH appeals to all the institutions, especially educational ones, to support this initiative of svevijesti.ba portal and to undertake certain measures upon the received complaints in order to decrease the corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina higher education.