NGOs lobby for anti-corruption legislation

Prague, March 12 (CTK) - Some non-governmental organisations want to have nine bills passed that will significantly help the fight against corruption by the end of this election term in mid-2014, David Ondracka, head of the Transparency International (TI) Czech branch, told journalists yesterday.

The NGOs want to make the lawmakers pledge to adopt them, Ondracka said, adding that the project has only started, being backed by 22 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

"We want to exert such a pressure on politicians under which they would have no chance to drop the legislation," Ondracka said.

The NGOs have selected the bills they need to have passed in a very pragmatic way, Ondracka said, adding that they were often very well drafted and their costs were low.

They include the bills on transparent funding of parties and election campaigns, politicians' electronic property returns, the presentation of state contracts on the Internet, the cancellation of bearer shares, the nomination of experts to supervising boards, depolitisation of the civil service and state attorneys' offices and the widening of the powers of the Czech Supreme Audit Office (NKU), Ondracka said.

The presentation of state contracts on the Internet is the hottest issue, Ondracka said.

Under the bill, now debated in the Chamber of Deputies, every contract is only to take effect at the moment of its public presentation. No disadvantageous deals are to be concluded secretly.

"This will strongly increase transaction costs of unethical conduct," economist and member of the Government's National Economic Council (NERV) Miroslav Zamecnik, who cooperated on the project, said.

All the proposals must be sent to the Chamber of Deputies by the autumn. Ondracka said this should be no problem unless the government blocks it.

The project is called the Reconstruction of the State. It was put together by the Environmental Service. Now some 20 anti-corruption organisations, lawmakers, experts and business associations are working on it.