Transparency International Slovensko (TIS) has been looking into the financing of self-governments. Their analysis assessing the openness of self-governments for four years shows that counties lag behind towns in terms of transparency. The Banská Bystrica County in central Slovakia performed the best in the latest assessment with 65% fulfilment of transparency criteria.
Second place went to the Bratislava region, followed by the Trnava region, both in Western Slovakia. The Trenčín region in Western Slovakia ended in the bottom spot. According to TIS director Gabriel Sipos, unlike towns and villages, self-governments are stagnating when it comes to transparency. Sipos attributes this to the low public interest in the issue. However, each citizen pays some €200 a year to self-governments which in the end work with approximately one billion euro each year, a price which could compare to the sixth largest ministry in Slovakia in terms of budgeting. So the lack of interest in the work of self-governments from the side of the public can open doors for their non-efficient use, claims Sipos. He adds that due to the lack of interest of the public in self-governments, regions lack media, NGOs and activists as well. From the indicators that Transparency International Slovensko focused on, Slovak self-governments proved to do best in providing access to information, mainly concerning their budgeting and running of social facilities. On the contrary, access to information about regional companies, the hiring of new employees, limited participation of the public in decision-making processes and insufficient tools for reporting corruption and illegal activities showed to be problematic for them.
