Fredom House opinion Lack of transparency from Constanta City Hall and Constanta County Council

ZIUA de Constanta daily newspaper recently obtained in court several photocopies of public documents from Constanta City Hall, Constanta County Council and Constanta Autonomous Administration Exploitation of Public and Private Property, after the three institutions have consistently refused to provide the documents according to legal provisions.

Since May 2013, ZIUA de Constanta Newspaper filed 300 requests based on Law no. 544/2001 to more than 50 contracting authorities, from institutions of the Ministry of National Defense (military units, educational institutions subordinated to the Ministry) to town halls, county councils, departments and autonomous administrations asking for copies of the minutes of meetings concluded following the award of public contracts. Among all of these institutions, only Constanta City Hall, Constanta County Council and Constanta Autonomous Administration Exploitation of Public and Private Property have refused to provide the requested documents.

Due to their refusal to provide our newspaper the requested documents, the three institutions were taken into court, where ZIUA de Constanta Newspaper had prevailed. It was about 25 trials, of which 18 with Constanta City Hall, already closed, 4 with Constanta Autonomous Administration Exploitation of Public and Private Property and 3 with Constanta County Council.

The attitude of the three public institutions reconfirms the lack of transparency shown by local authorities in Constanta and in order to make available to all interested readers the copies of some documents which by law are public it was necessary to be sued, and they had to pay lawyers from public money.

All the minutes produced in court from Constanta City Hall, Constanta County Council and Constanta Autonomous Administration Exploitation of Public and Private Property will be presented in future editions of the ZIUA de Constanta Newspaper, under the categories "Fighting Public Procurement Criminality" (“Combaterea criminalității în achizițiile publice”) / “Appeal to Transparency“ (“Apel la transparenţă“). Public procurement is an exciting field, both nationally and internationally.

Starting last year, Freedom House Romania developed the project "Fighting Public Procurement Criminality". This is a transnational project dedicated fighting public procurement fraud and it is developed in partnership with public authorities and institutions, civil society, a partner responsible for project visibility and several international partners. Considering that ZIUA de Constanta Newspaper subscribes to Freedom House Romania approaches regarding fight against crime in public procurement, we requested an opinion from the representatives of the organization about the lack of transparency shown by local authorities in Constanta.

"I am very happy that our initiative to monitor procurement succeeded. We encourage journalists to use existing legislation (Law no. 544/2001) to obtain information on public procurement. In benchmark no. 4, the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism mentions public procurement as the main vulnerability to corruption. When a local newspaper makes such an approach it is even more commendable. Last week-end I was in Constanta, a city so beautiful, with splendid interwar architecture that ruined due to corruption", said Cristina Guseth, Director of Freedom House Romania.