The Index of Public Integrity for the first time included the Republic of Moldova, which takes the 56th position out of 109 states in the rankings for 2017. Data for Moldova were collected by experts of the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul”, IPN reports.
According to “Viitorul”, Moldova scored 6.44. At regional level, only Romania bettered Moldova, ranking 30th with a score of 7.6. Russia holds the 72nd spot with a score of 5.9, while Ukraine the 68th spot with 6.2.
The Index of Public Integrity is a composite index consisting of six components: judicial independence, administrative burden, trade openness, budget transparency, e-citizenship and freedom of the press.
Moldova obtained the lowest score, of 2.4, for judicial independence, and ranked 105th out of 109 states. For budget transparency, Moldova got a score of 7.64 (47th spot), for administrative burden 9.2 (23rd), for trade openness 9.6 (22nd), while for freedom of the press 4.7 (71st).
According to economic expert Veaceslav Ionita, Moldova has witnessed positive developments as regards budget transparency and access to information about public funds during the last few years. In the period, the budgeting process has been based on programs that meet the international standards. This helped increase the country’s budget transparency, while the budget presents in detail all the sources of income.
