Eight political subjects- KDH, Most-Híd, OĽaNO, SaS, SDKÚ-DS, SMK, 99% and Smer-SD – have signed the commitment to enforce stricter rules for financing of the parties’ activities in one year from forming the new parliament in case they are elected. Smer- SD commented on the initiative positively but had delivered the signed commitment electronically only after the press conference on the evening of 15^th Feb. 2012. The number of parties who have signed the commitment thus grew from seven to eight. HZDS and SNS have not expressed their views on the initiative prepared by Transparency International Slovakia, Institute for Economic and Social Reforms, and Slovak Governance Institute. (more…)

The best law in fighting corruption passed by Radičová’s government is the amendment to the act on judges and assessors that brought publishing of the courts’ decisions online, public selection procedures for judges, and more detailed financial disclosure statements for judges. It follows from the ranking of Transparency International Slovakia that invited 13 experts to assess twenty anti-corruption laws brought before the parliament in this term. (more…)

Three non-governmental organizations offer the political parties a possibility of electoral public promise

Transparency International Slovakia, Institute for Economic and Social Reforms (INEKO), and Slovak Governance Institute sent letters containing the request for public commitment to the representatives of the major political parties to see whether are they willing to introduce the legislation proposals that would impose the stricter control over the financing of politicians during their prospective presence in parliament. Among the seven presented commitments are also: the establishment of the independent institution for control over financing, to tie the part of the state contributions for the political parties to the declared private donations, and stricter assets declarations.
These three NGOs will publish the decisions of the parties to commit to this public promise and to declare that they will propose the concerned legislation within a year from signing under this commitment on the 15th of February.

This initiative is aiming to support the solutions limiting the space for corrupt or hidden financing of political parties.

You can look at the whole letter and the form of public promise with seven particular commitments (available only in Slovak).

Number of tenders with more than five competitors has doubled in the past two years

The companies were competing more in the last year and this way the state saved up more than in the previous years. Number of purchases with a single applicant dropped from 47% to 38% of all tenders. On the other hand, the number of tenders with more than five applicants grew from one tenth to one fifth of all public procurement. Average savings towards the expected costs were in the past year on the level of 14%, while in 2009 it was only 5%. This follows from the analysis of quality of public procurement in years 2009-2011 prepared by Transparency International Slovakia.

While in 2009 the average number of companies in a tender was 2,3, in 2011 this number grew to 3,6. Higher participation of the companies in tenders affects positively the quality and profitability of the offers. This way Slovakia cut to half the previous lag behind the other EU countries where the average number of companies competing in one tender is five.
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