The Court of Accounts denies the information presented in the Report on access to information, prepared by a number of NGOs

On November 22, during a public event, was presented the second edition of the Report "Index of access to information: measuring the transparency of public institutions in the Republic of Moldova" developed within the MEDIA-M project, implemented by Internews in Moldova in partnership with Freedom House.

The mentioned report refers to the analysis of the degree of transparency of public institutions in the country, the following aspects being addressed: the legislative framework, proactive transparency and access upon request.

When presenting the results for Pillar III: Access upon request, the Court of Accounts of the Republic of Moldova (CoARM) was mentioned, along with a number of other public institutions, as an institution that ignored the sent request, being assigned a score of 0. Quote from the Report: "... it is surprising that several institutions, including the central bodies of the public administration, completely ignored the sent requests. The following institutions did not return with any answer:... the Court of Accounts;...".

In the context of these findings from the Report, the Court of Accounts declares that the information presented is not true, as a result of which the institution's image was damaged.

On 22.06.2022, the CoARM registered the incoming letter, received from the Public Association "Lawyers for human rights", in which official/public interest information was requested. On 13.07.2022 the Court of Accounts responded throughout the letter no. 04-1350-22 to the request received, providing all the requested information. The letter was sent to the postal address indicated by the authors of the request (Copy of the correspondence is attached in the annexes).

The given problem was generated by the authors of the Report and derives from an elementary and trivial thing: the requester of the information can be found at a different address than the one indicated in his own request, which is the real reason for not receiving the CoARM response.

The same problem was also stated in 2021, unfortunately, it has not been solved until now.

The situation created is inadmissible, in the context of the importance of the evaluation carried out with the support of external donors. The findings and conclusions based on incorrect data distort the real picture on the aspects evaluated within the mentioned Report.

All the mentioned have been brought to the attention of the authors. As a result of the communication, the Court of Accounts was informed that the errors will be corrected and the Report will be amended.

The Court of Accounts participated in the presentation of the Alternative Report of IPRE

The Court of Accounts presented the results of the audits of the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development to the Profile Committee