Measures for decreasing the corruption in Macedonia (2007-2008)
After determining the most vulnerable areas to corruption in Macedonia in the first phase of the project, by means of this project a total of 156 concrete measures that need to be taken by the authorities were created and recommended in order to narrow the room for corruption. The project included a comparison with the best practices from other countries, a series of workshops on which experts and representatives from the interested parties discussed and suggested ways to narrow the room for corruption, prioritizing the measures and sending them to the relevant institutions and the media, as well as monitoring their implementation.
A large number of the measures were taken, the more significant of which include: giving independence to the State Committee for Appeals regarding public procurements, whose members are now elected from the Parliament instead of the government, as was previously the case; acquiring an independent legal status of the Public Procurements Bureau, which has up until recently worked as part of the Ministry of Finance; starting the initiative for decreasing the bureaucratic procedures; providing legal protection for the students who report corruption; a more fierce fight against the construction mafia etc. The project was financially supported by the Balkan Trust for Democracy.