2024-02-19 00:21:21
Fighting and tackling corruption requires political will, civil intolerance and allies. We have the first two. We are working to attract more and more allies, Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev wrote on Facebook. He is at the Munich Security Conference.
“Corruption steals our future and stops our development. My team and I are committed to fighting corruption in all its forms, because we are convinced that deterring it not only contributes to the development and well-being of all, but also makes us -strong, more resistant to risks, more ethical and ultimately more sustainable as a society and economy,” wrote Terziev.
At the Security Conference in Munich, with the CEO of Transparency International Berlin, Daniel Eriksson, we discussed the possibilities for cooperation on risk analysis and measures to be developed and implemented in the Metropolitan Municipality.
This week I was also a guest at the second national conference on the topic “Combating vulnerabilities to corruption at the municipal level”. The forum is organized by the International Republican Institute (IRI), whose regional director for Europe, Paul McCarthy, I also had a personal meeting with. IRI’s anti-corruption reform program was adopted by the Metropolitan City Council in February 2023, but active work on it has stopped. With the Deputy Mayor of the “Legal and Administrative Control” department, Nikola Lyutov, we committed to continue the partnership with IRI and to put the planned measures into practice.
“Mr. McCarthy congratulated our team on the approach to the public discussion of the 2024 Budget Draft – open and accessible. Transparency really is the best cure for all the ills of governance, so it is not only not a concern for us, but we encourage it with all the means that the law allows us.Our goal is to create an environment and favorable conditions for the exercise of civil control over the work of local administration.
After our first discussion with representatives of organizations that have been working in the field of anti-corruption for years, we have a series of meetings again in the coming weeks to discuss in detail both potential pilot projects and plans for long-term cooperation. Deterring corruption is a commitment we owe to all Sofians and to the entire society,” commented the mayor of Sofia.