After the address by the President of the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption and Conflict of Interests at CIVIL’s seminar “Transparency and responsibility in the political processes”, a discussion was opened in which the participants asked questions on various topics related to the work of the institution that she manages.
At the two-hour discussion, Ivanovska openly, transparently and through specific current examples spoke about nepotism and on how the SCPC is investigating these cases.
“In all the cases of nepotism, we called for open criteria in which there would be quality. That way we will all be happy and satisfied, because there will be a place under the sun for everyone. The first issue we opened was nepotism. We receive cases from everywhere, and we look at all of them because they are all important. In the small towns, this is even more emphasized”, said Ivanovska, who gave several examples of nepotism cases they have worked on recently.
Biljana Ivanovska, SCPC, at CIVIL’s seminar / Photography: B. Jordanovska/CIVIL
“Last week we published the decision on the dental clinics and we filed criminal charges for abuse to the director. The first on the list of candidates has a hundred points, has finished his education in France, and yet he has not been accepted. While a gentleman with 49 points has been accepted. We called on the director to explain, and she said that she had made such a decision based on an interview that lasted an hour for all three candidates. She hadn’t even taken the points into consideration. There is no explanation why she accepted those people. What is that, if not political influence?”, asks Ivanovska, emphasizing that today in the era when everyone has Facebook, it’s very easy to disclose political influence.
Unlike this case, Ivanovska says that in relation to the ELEM case and the daughter of the President of Parliament, Talat Xhaferi, they haven’t determined any influence. She really did fulfil the criteria on all bases, and the rest of the candidates who had been interviewed, hadn’t complained at all about the employment procedure.
Biljana Ivanovska, SCPC: “The inspectors are working according to a check-list, we go deeper. We look at the entire procedure. Whether the announcement was transparent, does it correspond to the systematization, whether it will soon be changed in order to create a new job, that’s how those things are determined…” / Photography: B. Jordanovska / CIVIL
It was precisely on this topic that the Mayor of the Municipality of Rosoman, Branko Janev, was also interested in, where recently a principle of a primary school from this municipality “earned” a complaint for abuse of office by the SCPC, for the selection of a physical education teacher.
“We even received a reply from the second instance commission that everything was in order. It is just us and the Ombudsman who go deeper in human rights and freedoms. The inspectors work according to a check-list, we go deeper. We look at the entire procedure. Whether the announcement was transparent, does it correspond to the systematization, whether it will soon be changed in order to create a new job, that’s how those things are determined”, replied Ivanovska to Mayor Janev.
At the two-hour discussion a question was also raised as to how anonymity is guaranteed of those reporting cases, and in which way citizens can be encouraged.
Ivanovska again referred to the Law on Whistle-Blowers, which guarantees full anonymity and protection. And as to the encouraging of citizens, she recommends trainings for promotion of the Law on Protection of Whistle-Blowers.
Maja Ivanovska
in cooperation with Igor К. Ilievski
camera: Atanas Petrovski
editing and photography: Biljana Jordanovska
translation: N.C
This post is also available in: Macedonian
