EC Report Notes Local Authorities Lack Initiative In Fight Against Corruption

“By order of the General Prosecutor the different territorial prosecution offices have adopted strategies to fight corruption at local level. Regular exchanges of best practice and prioritization in vulnerable sectors complement this commendable initiative. The initiative has raised awareness in the regional prosecution offices concerning low level corruption (in education, healthcare), which seems to be a widespread phenomenon in Romania," the report obtained by MEDIAFAX states.

The intake of cases by the territorial prosecution offices is acceptable although probably not yet sufficiently based on own initiative investigations.

A lack of initiative in detecting corruption is also apparent in relation to local inspectorates of the healthcare or education departments and tax authorities, as well as other internal control bodies of public institutions, the draft report notes.

"In general, more emphasis could be given to preventive initiatives such as awareness raising campaigns aimed at the public and all levels of public administration, transparency of administrative procedures, enforcing the right of access to public documents, etc. low level corruption appears to be so widespread in certain areas of activity (public procurement, grants and permits, education, health, etc) that a structural preventive effort could yield more results in the long term than a case-by-case approach to law enforcement,” the EC noted in its draft report.