Rebalanced Budget Tied the Hands of the Anti-Corruption Commission

antikorupcija.org.mk

30 August 2005

The reduction of the budget of the Anti-Corruption Commission by 64% could be understood only as an attempt to impede its work, comment its Members the news of the latest rebalance of the Budget.

In addition, the reduction of the Budget comes at a time when the Council of Europe sent a clear message to Macedonia that it invests too little in the service that fight the corruption and recommends an intensified support to the institutional fight against the corruption.

The latest rebalance of the Budget has hit the salary lines of the Commission, so that its Secretariat, instead of the planned 25, currently works with only five employees.

The plan for the Secretariate, which is considered an experts� body, was to start with five employees and to increase the number of employees each year. The plan for 2005 was to take over seven employees from the Public Revenue Bureau, but the new budget will hardly allow for that.

The Anti-Corruption Commission demanded a meeting with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Speaker of the Parliament. Although they don�t expect any immediate change of the situation, the Commission says that they wanted to present their case and views on the whole affair.