Transparency index of Montenegrin municipalities (Centar za građansko obrazovanje (CGO), 2020)
Fight against corruption requires a multidisciplinary, continuous and multifaceted approach, and one of the preconditions is a high degree of transparency in the work of public sector bodies. Local self-governments are the closest service to the citizens which is expected to respond directly to their needs. However, openness is still not an integral part of their work, which can to a large degree make it more difficult for citizens to access these services, and for the civil society to monitor public policies at this level. It also does not help to dispel the existing unethical and corrupt patterns and practices. Regular monitoring with annual scores for each Montenegrin municipality can also serve as an incentive to improve the transparency. The Transparency Index of Montenegrin municipalities, which systematically and methodologically frames earlier activities in this area, is a direct contribution in this direction.
Several years of close monitoring of municipal websites, presumably the simplest method to inform the citizens about their work, shows that Montenegrin municipalities have made some progress. These websites are today visually better, more functional and richer in content than they were a few years ago. However, they still do not provide sufficient coverage of information and do not publish all of the documents, they are legally obliged to publish, nor many of those which they should be publishing proactively. The Transparency Index of Montenegrin municipalities provides an overview of the current situation, with detailed explanations that can be instructive to each municipality individually. In addition to this information, the Transparency Index of Montenegrin municipalities also presents the findings of public opinion polls that survey citizens' perceptions of corruption in Montenegro.
The Transparency Index of Montenegrin municipalities emerged as part of the project 'Let's Put Corruption into Museum' implemented by the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) with the non-governmental organizations CeMI from Podgorica, Za Druga from Petrovac, Bonum from Pljevlja and UL-info from Ulcinj, in cooperation with the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and the Ministry of Public Administration, and with the support of the EU Delegation to Montenegro and co-financing by the Ministry of Public Administration. We hope that the future annual reviews will find Montenegrin municipalities scoring much better on transparency, and thus contributing to archiving corruption in our society