The aim of this handbook is to contribute to a more comprehensive and better planning and management of public funds to meet actual needs and interests of the citizens in the Western Balkans region. To ensure greater participation of citizens in this important area of public finance management, this handbook summarizes key steps in public procurement and draws attention to the established principles of purposefulness to each of them. The handbook aims to the efforts of the Balkan Tender Watch coalition to expand the front of the NGOs which, through their activities, try to hold governments accountable for their work and to foster necessary reforms.

The handbook is available only in Macedonian.

Skopje, September 21, 2016 - The Center for Civil Communications announced today the results of research of active transparency of institutions. The ranking covers all 81 municipalities and the City of Skopje, 15 ministries and the Government. The percentage of fulfillment of the obligations for disclosure of public information of all 97 institutions is 45% (of 100%).

The legal basis for active transparency of the institutions are located primarily in the Law on Free Access to Public Information, and in many other laws such as the Law on Local Self-Government, the Budget Law, the Law on Public Debt, the Law on Financing of Units local self-government, etc. Apart from regulation, active transparency derives from practice, i.e. when an institution makes available to all citizens answers to questions often received in the form of requests for access to public information.

According to the scale of active transparency, most institutions (33%) are in the group with an 'average' active transparency, and least (4%) are in the best group, the one with 'good' active transparency. Generally, municipalities stand much better than the ministries and government. The municipalities are ranked on the first 18 places and the best ministry is only on 19^th place. All four institutions in the top group, with 'very good' active transparency are municipalities.

In terms of specific areas of active transparency - the institutions publish most information on access to information, and least in the area of ​​budgetary and financial transparency.

The ranking of the institutions and the research are available only in Macedonian.

The research was conducted within the Civica Mobilitas program, which supports the annual program of the CCC.

SKOPJE, 4 July 2016 – Today, the Centre for Civil Communications published its regular monitoring report on public procurement procedures implemented by local institutions, which provides the following results and findings:

• Market research related to requirements defined under technical specifications has failed in all cases. In 100% of tender procedures contracting authorities had to obtain approval from the Council of Public Procurements prior to announcing their procurement notices. As regards eligibility criteria, market research has been successful in 71% of cases, and approval had to be obtained in the remaining 29% of cases.
  
• Numerous examples from the monitoring sample showed great interdependence between procurement’s estimate value and final price attained, as well as with tender annulments. Therefore, prior to engaging in any serious effort to set estimated values of their procurements, contracting authorities are recommended to perform preliminary research of market prices and conditions.
• In this monitoring period and sample, the share of tender annulments has decreased to below-average level, although there are examples of problematic tender annulments or non-annulment of tender procedures.
• Competition in tender procedures organized on local level remained on the same low level of an average of 2.5 bidding companies per tender procedure, while the share of tender procedures with no bidding companies or with only one bidding company was decreased.
• While the share of monitored tender procedures that have been completed with e-auction is increasing compared to the last monitoring period, the average number of companies participating in downward bidding at e-auctions accounted for only 2.

This monitoring report is available here. For more information, please contact the Center for Civil Communications by tel. (02) 3213-513 or by e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

USAID Civil Society Project is implemented by the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia (FOSM) in partnership with the Center for Civil Communications, the Youth Educational Forum, Reactor – Research in Action, and Forum – Centre for Strategic Research and Documentation.

NOTE TO THE EDITORS:

The American people, through USAID, have invested over $500 million in Macedonia since 1993. USAID works with the people of Macedonia to create jobs, strengthen democratic institutions and practices, enhance integrated education, and prepare students for the workforce. These initiatives improve the quality of life and support Macedonia’s transition to a stable and prosperous democracy. USAID provides economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries. For more information please visit macedonia.usaid.gov and the Facebook page www.facebook.com/USAIDMacedonia.

SKOPJE, 6 May 2016 – Today, the Center for Civil Communications published its monitoring report on public procurement covering the period July – December 2015, which also includes results and findings from the survey conducted among 254 companies and analysis of their appeal procedures.

Survey among companies related to their experience in public procurement where they participated shows that:

• two most frequent problems faced by companies in public procurement concern lowest prices as the single criterion for awarding public procurement contracts and delayed payment for contract performance;
• average period of waiting for collection of receivables for contract performance amounts to 8 months;
• 79% of surveyed companies believe that corruption is present in public procurement, as follows: 37% of them indicated that corruption is often present, 10% indicated it is always present, while 32% of surveyed companies indicated that corruption is rarely present in public procurement. Only 21% of companies indicated that corruption is never present in public procurement.

Key findings from monitoring of public procurement include:

• costs for engagement of experts by the Council of Public Procurement in cases of issuing approval for tender procedures amounted to total of 2.2 million EUR, paid by contracting authorities;
• every fourth tender procedure from the monitoring sample is characterized by only one bidding companies;
• in 2015, contracts signed by means of negotiation procedures without previously announced call for bids accounted for more than 29 million EUR;
• total of 19.9% of all public procurement procedures organized in 2015 were annulled.

Analysis of appeal procedures led in front of the State Commission for Public Procurement Appeals shows that:

• for the entire 2015, only 523 appeals have been lodged among the total of more than 18,000 tender procedures implemented, which is indicative of an exceptionally small percentage of public procurement procedures appealed – 2.8%;
• 67% of appeals have been lodged against selection decisions for the most favourable bid.

The monitoring report is available here and at: www.ccc.org.mk. For more information, please contact the Center for Civic Communications by tel. (02) 3213-513 or by e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

USAID Civil Society Project is implemented by the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia (FOSM) in partnership with the Center for Civil Communications, the Youth Educational Forum, Reactor – Research in Action, and Forum – Centre for Strategic Research and Documentation.

NOTE TO THE EDITOR:

The American people, through USAID, have invested over $500 million in Macedonia since 1993. USAID works with the people of Macedonia to create jobs, strengthen democratic institutions and practices, enhance integrated education, and prepare students for the workforce. These initiatives improve the quality of life and support Macedonia’s transition to a stable and prosperous democracy. USAID provides economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries. For more information please visit macedonia.usaid.gov and the Facebook page www.facebook.com/USAIDMacedonia.

Skopje, 6 April, 2016 – The Center for Civil Communications in partnership with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and NGO Info-centre has started three-year implementation of the EU funded project “Investigative reporting to boost reforms”. The Project will create a core of well skilled investigative journalists, as well as a network of grass-root CSOs from all over the country which should contribute towards improved investigative journalism both through their work and through the cooperation with journalists.

Project activities will be determined to change the current situation where the media in the country fail to play a pivotal watching role, i.e. expose and analyse issues of public interests and hold public officials to accountability. In such circumstances of deteriorating situation in the media combined with understaffed news teams and limited resources there is an apparent lack of investigative journalism, one of the most powerful tools for holding government accountable.

Project aims to increased quality and credibility of investigative journalism, and creation of CSOs’ open databases serving as resource for investigative journalism and their own activities. Project activities envisage intensive training program on investigative journalism on government’s accountability, mentorship and coaching of investigative journalists, award competition for investigative stories, study visits, public debates, sub-granting, training and mentoring of local CSOs in preparation of open data bases for important social issues, and a creation of informal network of CSOs and journalists.

Total budget of the project is 294,812 EUR, while the EU contribution is 265,331 EUR.