The National Assembly House hosted a regional meeting of GOPAC dedicated to innovative scrutiny methods and informal platforms for advanced scrutiny and transparency.
Stating that the GOPAC Serbia Branch was established in direct response to the citizens’ demands, Dubravka Filipovski, President of the Serbia National Branch of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC), opened the regional meeting saying that its objective was to exchange experiences and overcome problems at the regional level. Filipovski said that the introduction of the Public Finance Supervision Portal is one of GOPAC’s biggest achievements and that from its establishment in 2013 onward the Serbian National Branch has successfully cooperated with the State Audit Institution, Anti-Corruption Agency, Anti-Corruption Council, various NGOs and the civil sector. “Accountability and transparency are the basic tenets of GOPAC”, stressed Filipovski adding that the objective of the Public Finance Supervision Portal is to strengthen the National Assembly’s supervision capacities and include the public into the legislative process.
In the course of the meeting, the representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Moldova agreed that fight against corruption is one of the chief global challenges and fostering ties at the regional and global level is a significant step forward in containing the problem.
The participants of the meeting reviewed the GOPAC results and action plan concerning parliamentarians’ leading role in raising awareness. The participants spoke about legislation that had been passed and its practical implementation which is closely connected with the monitoring and control of public spending, such as laws concerning public procurement and whistleblowers.
Aleksandra Tomic, Chairperson of the Committee on Finance, State Budget and Control of Public Spending, presented the National Assembly’s Public Finance Supervision Portal saying that the fight against corruption is a long process that needs to be tackled at the national, regional and global level. The Public Finance Supervision Portal and its mode of operation was the presented in detail to each of the participants through a presentation and concrete demonstration. Tomic said that the Portal was part of stage III of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) project to bring the public finance control closer to the citizens.
In the afternoon part of the meeting, the GOPAC members spoke about the implementation of the anti-corruption legislation, institutions and mechanisms, and the representatives of GOPAC Moldova, Kyrgyz Republic and Georgia spoke about their experiences concerning the inclusion of the public into decision-making and transparency of the budget process, code of conduct, state audit authorities’ budget monitoring webpage and e-petitions.
The proceedings were brought to a close by Dr Milorad Mijatovic, coordinator of the National Assembly’s Focus Group for the Development of Control Mechanisms for the Process of Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals, who spoke on the topics of “Establishment of informal parliamentary groups and Sustainable Development Goals forum and public awareness campaign”, as well as “Action Plans – Open Government Partnership”.
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here to watch the press conference of the participants of the GOPAC regional meeting.
On the second day of the proceedings, the participants discussed the establishment of a GOPAC regional branch.
The meeting resulted in eight conclusion proposals which the participating countries will take into consideration for the purpose of fostering closer cooperation and establishing a GOPAC regional branch.
The meeting was supported by the UNDP/SDC project “Strengthening the Oversight Role and Transparency of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia - Phase II”.
