Cantonal Institutions Get Low Grades

10 July 2008

During the three-day street action organized by the Civil Society Promotion Centre the citizens gave the Cantonal Government in Sarajevo very low average grade of 1.73 for its work in seven public policy areas.

During the action, the citizens graded the performance of their elected representatives on a scale of one to five in seven areas: budget spending; healthcare; education; employment; distribution of public funds; care of elderly and ill persons; local information.

The lowest grade of 1.51 was given in the are of employment; and the highest grade of 1.95 for local information. In fact, 452 of the 1,590 citizens polled believed that one may be too high a grade and entered a zero in the questionnaires.

The results, together with recommended actions will be presented to the institutions and holders of power in the Canton of Sarajevo and to the NGOs that work on issues of public policies in the said areas.

At the same time, the Civil Initiatives Centres published the results of the monitoring of performance of cantonal institutions in BH Federation in the first four months of 2008, showing some positive movements compared to 2007.

Compared to last year, most cantons adopted working programmes and budgets within the legal deadlines and have increased the number of measures related to civic platforms and the rate of implementation of legislation.

CCI comments that it is not enough, having in mind the non-essential nature of the changes and the fact that the activities were not focused enough on improved living standards of citizens.

CCI representatives invited the competent authorities in cantonal governments and parliaments to put stronger pressure on their irresponsible colleagues to focus their efforts on finding solutions to priority problems or to leave offices for which they have no competence, whatsoever.

-CCI will continue to monitor and follow the work of governments in BiH and to report to the public about all instances of irresponsible action by individual officials or political parties, says Ivica Ćavar, coordinator of monitoring team.