News

On March 4, 2024, in the premises of the Public Room in Skopje, in front of representatives of the public, civil and media sectors, we presented the findings of our research through which we monitored the abuse of discretionary powers by the public sector.

Specifically, the findings of the following researches were presented:

- The discretionary powers of the Municipalities https://shorturl.at/ajwMO

- The discretionary powers of the electoral administration https://shorturl.at/hzKT1

Researches show that the Municipalities and the State Election Commission spend huge sums from the state budget through their discretionary powers.

That is, the research on the discretionary powers of the municipalities showed that the municipalities spend large amounts of the citizens' money on various grounds (sports, cultural, social, etc.) on individuals and legal entities, without having a clear basis and without any justification. This research covered the municipalities of Centar, Kisela Voda, Karposh and Kichevo, and the data was analyzed from publicly available information for the period from 2019 to mid-2023.

The research on discretionary powers in the financing of paid political advertising showed that the State Election Commission (SEC) allocates huge sums of money to citizens in an insufficiently regulated procedure according to the Electoral Code and without better regulating that procedure with its own by-law.

The research was conducted within the framework of the project "Encouraging good governance and public administration reform" supported by the National Endowment for Democracy.