For the past three years, the Municipality of Gjorce Petrov has been publishing more detailed budget documents, which has increased transparency of the specific purpose of the funds spent. This is one of the main conclusions from the report “Monitoring of budget processes in the Municipality of Gjorce Petrov”, prepared by the Center for Social Research and Development – PRIZMA in partnership with FORUM – Center for Strategic Research and Documentation, as part of the project funded by the Civil Society Resource Centre.
Concerning the analysed 2019 budget, a lower level of capital revenues and expenditures was realized. In 2020, the realized surplus of the municipality is to be emphasized, which is praiseworthy and is a rarity in the work of the local self-government units in our country. One of the remarks on this issue is the difference between the planned and the realized funds over the years, i.e. the lower amount of realized than planned. This leads to the conclusion that effectiveness, as one of the main budget principles, is not respected in the preparation and execution of budgets.
The municipality regularly publishes budget documents, but often with delays. The main remark about the availability of these documents is that they are rarely published separately on the website of the municipality and that makes them less accessible to citizens.
The report was presented on 23rd September 2020 in the premises of the Civil Society Resource Centre in Skopje. The event was facilitated by Slagjan Penev, Executive Director of Forum CSRD and mentor of the research, and the researchers from the association Prizma, Vlado Anchev and Dimitar Ilchov, presented the monitoring data. The report aims to improve the level of awareness of the transparency of budget processes in the specific municipality.
Forum CSRD within this project organized two trainings for the representatives of the organization CSRD Prizma for the needs of strengthening the capacities for fundraising and for conducting monitoring of the budget processes in the municipalities. In addition, over the course of ten months it provided mentoring support to the team members who conducted the research according to the budget monitoring methodology developed by Forum CSRD.
The project “Monitoring of budget processes in the municipality of Gjorce Petrov” is a sub-grant received by the Civil Society Resource Centre, which is EU-funded project implemented by the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC), Association for Democratic Initiatives (ADI) from Gostivar and Media Plus.
