In the transparency ranking of 100 biggest Ukrainian cities, Ternopil ranks only 31st and is among the cities whose transparency results leave something to be desired. Yet, the local authorities would like to improve the situation. That is why the experts of the Ukrainian chapter of Transparency International have presented the ranking in the city for local officials, activists and journalists, at the invitation of the local authorities. The experts have also provided their recommendations on improving Ternopil’s results.
The transparency ranking of 100 biggest Ukrainian cities has been composed by the analysts of TI Ukraine and the Institute of Poitical Education based on 91 indicators in 13 areas of accountability of the local authorities.
Ternopil received 33.5 out of 100 points for transparency and has shown adequate results in the area of information on the work of local authorities (7.8 points), in the area of access and participance (6 points) and budgeting (5.5 points). However, many areas have gotten low grades. For instance, the housing policy, social services and education have been awarded zero points.
It means that there is no system of electronic registration for housing in Ternopil, nor is there an online queue which allows the applicants to track the status of their applications. There is no information on the city website about social aid institutions. Nothing is published on the allocation of places in kindergartens. The area of finances and grants leaves much to be desired, too – Ternopil has no practice of holding tenders on allocation of funds between civil society organizations.
“Ternopil is one of those cities where the authorities asked us to provide a detailed assessment to review the situation better and fix it. We call on the city authorities to take into account our recommendations, as other cities are already doing it. The more our recommendations are taken into account, the more chances that the city will improve its position in the ranking. There are four areas of accountability of the local authorities where there is an urgent need for change – housing, social services,education, grants and finance allocation. We are glad that the city authorities aspire to make the city more transparent. Now it is time to translate these good intentions into real actions,” says the manager of the Building Transparency in Ukrainian Cities project at Transparency International Ukraine Kateryna Tsybenko.
Transparency International Ukraine and the Institute of Political Education are ready to cooperate with the authorities and local activists in Ternopil and provide their recommendations and advice on how to increase the transparency of the city. After all, while the process of decentralization is underway in Ukraine, it is essential not to allow decentralization of corruption.
The project Building Transparency in Ukrainian Cities is implemented with the support of U.N. Democracy Fund.
