Corruption risks in local
governments are related with the rather wide powers of municipalities, when
deciding about building regulations, issuing construction permissions or taking
other decisions that can have an important influence on business environment
and quality of peoples lives. In the same way local governments are managing
remarkable financial resources, they organize bulk public procurements, manage
the property of municipality etc. The wide powers have always been related to
corruption risks, because that is where public and private sector interests
meet. During the last years more and more cases are being heard that officials
from local governments have been arrested for committing of corruptive
delinquencies. For example, Riga's,
Jurmala's, Zilupe's municipalities have experienced loud corruption scandals.
Therefore a prevention of corruption in local governments has become as one of
the main priorities in Delna's work. Cooperation with local governments
has been an integral part of several projects carried out by Delna, as
well as several projects have been implemented on issues related to local
governments.
Anti-corruption activities in the municipality of Riga
In the second part of year 2008
with a financial support of the Embassy if NetherlandsDelna started a project “Anti-corruption measures in RigaCityCouncil – public participation in the prevention of corruption”. The main
aim of the project was to promote anti-corruption measures in Riga's municipality and encourage
participation of the society in them.
Management of municipality's real
estates in Riga
From October 2006 till January 2007Delna carried out a research “Practice and improvement of land resource
management in Riga City Council”, where Riga Forest Agency (Rīgas mežu
aģentūra), ltd. “Riga Houses” (SIA “Rīgas nami”) and ltd. “Riga Town
Constructor” (SIA “Rīgas Pilsētbūvnieks”) were examined. The project was
supported by “Soros Foundation – Latvia”.
Transparency in the budgets of local
governments
In year 2003 with a financial
support of European Commission in LatviaDelna carried out a project “Implementation of transparency
principles in the budgets of the municipalities of Latvia”. The main aims of the
project were to increase the level of transparency in the budgets of local
governments and the responsibility of the municipality leaders towards the
society; to promote participation of society in the decision making of local
governments about important issues; to facilitate the role of non-governmental
organizations in the planning and control of the local government budgets; to
hand over the experience of Delna in the analysing of local government
budgets and introducing the transparency principles. Four municipalities took
part in the project – Balvi, Bauska, Cēsis and Tukums.
In year 2002 Delnaimplemented a project “Public airing of local government budgets. The
analysis of ValmieraCity budget”. To make
the budget and the budget making process transparent and facilitate involvement
of the society in the budget making and control, Delna in cooperation
with Institute of Economics of Latvian Academy of Sciences and financial
support of Soros Foundation – Latvia from February till December of year 2002
did an analysis of Valmiera City budget, thinking of analysing the budgets of
other municipalities in analogical way and afterwards to start the analysis of
the state budget, in this way improving the comprehensibility of the budgets
and facilitating the involvement of society in the budget making process.
