The Municipality of Gazi Baba today hosted a workshop organised by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) aimed at launching the implementation and promotion of the project “Communities with Integrity” which is being implemented through the Swiss Cooperation Program in Macedonia.
Mayor Boban Stefkovski expressed special satisfaction that Gazi Baba is one of the six municipalities in Macedonia in which this program will be implemented.
Mayor Stefkovski emphasised at the workshop that in early 2022, after several months of his mandate, a field and telephone survey was conducted to examine public opinion regarding the problems faced by citizens, in which the majority of citizens, as expected, highlighted their problems in the area of road and communal infrastructure. However, what was unexpected was the percentage of citizens who highlighted corruption as a problem in local self-government, which is an indicator that citizens have lost trust in institutions, and this is a consequence of betrayed expectations and impunity for all those who have in any way violated the Law.
We had a relevant result in front of us that citizens do not trust the institution and suspect corruption, we formed a working group in the municipality that worked intensively on preparing measures and activities.
In cooperation with the previous composition of the State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, we launched the campaign “Don’t be silent – report corruption” for which we opened a 24-hour telephone line, an email address and appointed a person from my office in charge of receiving reports. We have made these opportunities fully available to citizens.
Additionally, for the first time, we have prepared an integrity policy for the Municipality of Gazi Baba, which we submitted to the competent institutions of the system.
After implementing the campaign “Don’t be silent – report corruption”, in the next public opinion poll, corruption as a problem rose from a high second place to 7th place on the table.
For us, the beginning of the end of the word corruption in state institutions lies in implementing the procedure for the complete digitalisation of services to citizens.
Digital technology is one of the most important tools for establishing a bridge between institutions and citizens, as well as increasing the efficiency of the operation of state institutions and their accountability to citizens.
The faster we succeed in digitalising institutions, the faster we will take away the power of individuals.
We opened the Municipality of Gazi Baba to the citizens, and domestic and international organisations became our partners.