Политика

On September 24 in the new office of the Agency for Regional Development-Center for Business and Information was held a final meeting on one project, which lasted 9 months. Its name is "Attracting business for more effective participation in the fight against corruption in the municipality of Velingrad", and for the general public it is known first of all with the Charter against Corruption established in our city for the first time in the country.
The final meeting was attended by the hosts from the RDA with executive director Vaska Milusheva, the project managers Blenika Dzhelepova and Stanislav Slavov from the Center for Economic Development, Dr. Anelia Damyanova, the chairman of the Municipal Council Nejat Kehayov and municipal councilors, guests from the project center "Jobs" from Peshtera, representatives of the police, RDP, business and media. Despite the official invitation and despite the importance of the topic of corruption, the meeting did not respect a single representative of the Municipal Administration led by the interim mayor Stoyan Dulev. There are skeptical people who ask themselves what happens after a project is completed. The point is in creating local capacity to solve problems locally; in getting information from many people about their rights; in creating a partnership between the business and the municipality. This was Mrs. Dzhelepova's thesis, which clearly emphasized that corruption is not overcome by speaking and that it is high time our judiciary became adequate to the European one. Mr. Slavov also pointed out that the decrease in corruption even by a few points leads to an increase in the level of economic development and it is not by chance that precisely the countries with low corruption are the most developed economically. The role of local authorities in the fight against corruption summarized Mr. N. Kehayov. According to him, this project in Velingrad created an initial urge among people to talk about the problems of corruption and this process should continue. Corruption in local government does not have only a lev equivalent, it often manifests itself as an impact on certain people - both in small town halls and in departments in the municipality. Velingrad is experiencing a political crisis of the mayoral institution, the interaction between the Municipal Council and the administration is not good, Mr. Kehayov did not hide.
About the real steps taken against corruption in some municipalities, told Dr. Anelia Damyanova. First of all, she put the more active partnership between the business and the local government and recommended that businessmen not only compete, but also unite to solve common problems. An example was the establishment of a Business Leaders Club in Razlog, which in practice had a positive impact on the economic development of Razlog. Dr. Damyanova presented data that there is some improvement in business assessments of the economic environment in the country and predicted that soon the heavy registration procedure of the commercial sites will be dropped. She recommended businessmen and citizens to get acquainted with the new legal provisions for "silent consent" and to fight for these rights before the administrations.
An example of a successful anti-corruption practice was the introduced one-stop-shop model at the Labor Office - Velingrad. This model of service to citizens minimizes opportunities for corruption and meets the European requirements for quality of administrative service, explained the director of BT and municipal councilor Atanas Vodev. He criticised the Municipal Administration for not working in the same direction and listed many of the mistakes made by the mayor's team and led to deterioration of the service to the citizens.
At the closing meeting, many thanks were exchanged between the project managers and partners from Velingrad plus a willingness not to stop there. It is clear that the project "happened" in a tense and even dramatic period for Velingrad. But the idea of an Anti-Corruption Charter was carried out, the document is a fact, the signatures under it continue to multiply. Corruption really can't fight speech, but even less can it fight silence.
Elena Baeva