At the “Holiday Inn” Hotel, a finishing conference for the project Technical Assistance and Rising of the Awareness for the Support of the Application of the Law on Free Access to Public Information” took place. In the past two years, financially supported by the Embassy of the United Kingdom in the Republic of Macedonia, the project was implemented by the Commission for Protection of the Right to Free Access to Public Information (CPRFAPI) in cooperation with the Macedonian Institute for Media (MIM).
The President of the Commission, Janko Nikolovski, showed sincere gratitude to the Ambassador of the United Kingdom in Macedonia, Mr. Andrew Key, who made a great contribution to the achievement of the planned project activities in praxis. With this grant, as Nikolovski stressed, “Europe has confirmed that we are not alone and that Europe considers as supporters of the democracy”. The President was satisfied by the achieved goals and assessed that this project was of a great value most of all to the official persons of the information holders, which in the future should be an open door to the citizens, i.e. to their requests.
The Deputy Minister of Justice, Ibrahim Ibrahimi, stressed that the adoption of the Law on Free Access to Public Information, the Government confirmed its determination for transparency of the institutions that are financed by the budget. This project, Ibrahimi added, contributed to a faster implementation of the legal provisions as well as to the education of the official persons and the citizens. Ibrahimi pointed out that the Law is still not perfect, mentioning that there is a procedure for modifications of this Law in progress that is to remove the existing flaws.
The Ambassador, Mr. Andrew Key, showed his satisfaction that the British Embassy supported the project. Mr. Key greeted the introduction of the new web site of the Commission in Albanian language and concluded that even larger number of people is using the web portal. He stressed that this project made the Commission into a more recognizable institution with a capacity to positively answer the needs of the public.
Ms. Biljana Petkovska, Director of MIM and a member of the Commission spoke about the results and the effect of the project and informed that the number of the submitted requests in 2008 was for 22% higher than in 2007. Thanks to this grant 50 trainings for 800 official persons in the country were made and several publications, brochures, posters, flyers and other promotional and educational material has been published, both in Macedonian and Albanian language. Media campaign was also made by making of a short animated film for introducing of the citizens with their new right to a free access to public information. A completely new web portal of the Commission was created that is updated on a daily basis. This project also helped organizing several round tables and debates that contributed to the popularization of the Law on FAPI.
The Commission member, Ljubica Stanojoska, promoted the publication “Examples from the work of the Commission”, containing review of the most specific cases of the Commission’s work.
The addresses of some of the trainers completed the Conference, in which they gave their personal views and experiences from the educational sessions with the persons in charge of mediating public information.
