City council of Trostianets turned to the Ukrainian chapter of global anti-corruption organization Transparency International, requesting to add their city to the study as Trostianets is not included in the 100 largest cities by population. As of today, the city has 22.65 points out of a 100 and it ranks 78th; it became the second city to join the original hundred.
In Ukraine, the process of decentralization is underway; local authorities are gaining power and budget is becoming more independent. Therefore, the team of Transparent Cities is working on the development of public oversight mechanisms and providing recommendations on how to increase accountability to local authorities. For this reason, TI decided to include the city in the ranking and help measure the transparency of the city.
The highest score of 3.7 was given to the sector of land utilization and construction; the sector of information on the work of local authorities was relatively transparent. The sector of professional ethics and conflict of interest got 3.5 points. The remaining sectors do not yield high results. Three areas received 0 points for transparency: municipal property, social services and financial and housing policy. This means that citizens do not receive any information about these sectors while the government is unaccountable and closed.
“The good news is that the city council of Trostianets has the desire to take the first step towards improving the situation by measuring the transparency of their hometown. We urge all the remaining cities not included in the Transparency ranking, to follow Trostianets’ footsteps by calculating and improving their transparency results,” said program coordinator of Transparent Cities Kateryna Tsybenko.
“We made the decision to take part in the Transparency Ranking of 100 Ukrainian cities because we’re curious to see our position and correct the faults that we have. The viewpoint of an independent organization is important for us and we are willing to listen to the recommendations from TI and move towards transparency,” said Head of the City Council of Trostianets Yuriy Bova.
TI Ukraine continues to work on transparency in various regions of Ukraine and motivate citizens to actively seek accountability of their city councils, and representatives of the local government – to aim for greater transparency. Let us not forget that openness and transparency are key conditions for reducing corruption.
