News

Monday, February 4, 2011, during a round table, the Anticorruption Alliance together with the Centre for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption, put under discussion the functioning of the governmental anticorruption hotlines with the operators of the respective hotlines from the public authorities.

The hotlines were instituted on the basis of the Governmental Decision no. 615  from 28.06.2005, for the purpose of preventing corruption and protectionism in the public institutions by receiving information on the corruption acts and abuses committed by the employees of the respective organization from various sources, including through the anticorruption hotline, examination of the cases and taking the necessary measures, as well as transmitting to the competent law enforcement agencies the respective materials.

Since their institution, the press from the Republic of Moldova carried out 3 checks of the hotlines’ functioning and found out that there are many drawbacks. Not all the public authorities have instituted such hotlines, most of them fail to promote them, many times the persons who are answering the phone are not even area that this is a hotline. The hotlines operators are not trained and usually they are not dedicated entirely or mostly to this work, they do not observe a certain schedule made known to the public. These generate a lot of problems, some hotlines are never being answered or are usually busy and the persons picking up the phone do not inspire trust and do not create the impression of being competent to those who call in order to report a corruption act. Considering that currently most of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova are not ready to come forward to the state institutions in order to make a formal complaint, to reveal their identity and o leave their contact details, it is crucial that the hotline operators to not make it a condition for the hotline callers that they come in person in order to bring a written complaint, but rather to convince them that their identity will not be revealed should they ask for it.

Most of these problems could be overcome by adopting Rules on the functioning of the governmental hotlines. During the round table the experience of operating the hotlines of the CCECC and of the ACA members - Transparency International-Moldova and the Centre for the Analysis and Prevention of Corruption were presented and the provisions to be eventually included in such a regulation were brought to discussion, namely: the time schedule of the hotlines, the subdivisions in the public authority from which the hotline operators are appointed, their rights and duties, ensuring the confidentiality of the calls, registering the information and follow-up on the cases reported on the anticorruption hotline, referral of the information to the law enforcement, liability and training of the operators etc.

Currently, the ACA and the CCECC are working on a draft Regulation on the functioning of the hotlines of the public administration authorities, following to be shortly forwarded to the public institutions for comments and suggestions.