The first website dedicated to municipal services – www.serviciicomunale.md – has been launched today by the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT. The platform contains information about municipal services in various cities of the country and shows how the municipalities compare to one another in this respect.
Polina Panainte, ADEPT program director, said the website promotes local transparency in an effort to empower citizens to seek accountability from local authorities to deliver good-quality public services. The platform compiles data from 26 cities, as 6 others from the initial selection failed to provide relevant information.
One major conclusion, says Polina Panainte, is that there are enormous disparities in quality levels of municipal services. For example, in Basarabeasca and Sângerei less than a fourth of households are connected to the city sewer system. There are towns which lose vast amounts of water through leaky supply systems. In Edineț, for example, leakage is responsible for increasing rates. Perhaps surprisingly, Chisinau is not the best provider of municipal services, says Polina Panainte, as smaller cities manage to provide better quality for less money.
Inna Vrîncean, ADEPT project coordinator, said the website will provide instruments for the public to inform themselves about the situation in their cities. It will contain relevant news and contact information for the municipal service providers.
According to ADEPT director Igor Boțan, living standards depend on the municipal services provided by the local authorities, and the goal of the project is to bring beneficiaries and local authorities closer together. The project is a good occasion for a citizen browsing the website to start ask questions, says Igor Boțan, and make local authorities accountable. It’s also an instrument to see how taxpayer’s money and grants from foreign donors are being spent on infrastructure improvement projects and how these projects are actually implemented.
The website has been created as part of a project supported by the UK Government's Good Governance Fund. An analytical report will soon be presented to show details about the quality of municipal services in the selected cities.
