BRATISLAVA, July 10, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovak state-run and municipal companies are overly politicized and lack transparency, shows the first transparency chart of firms run by the state and municipalities. Transparency International Slovensko is the author of the chart featuring thirty state-run and fifteen municipal companies generating annual sales of some EUR 3 billion and employing some 50,000 people.
The organization informs that one-third of 45 biggest firms failed to answer the TIS request for information though it is their duty to reply to such inquiry according to the law on free access to information. Two-thirds of the companies failed to inform the watchdog about how much their directors earn and provide their CVs. Fifty percent of the firms addressed refused to make public a contract on purchased cleaning services. Moreover, three-quarters of the companies do not have their ethical code and nearly 90 percent do not publish their performance goals in advance. One in six state and municipal firms have no annual report on the web for the past three years.
“Low transparency rate goes hand in hand with highly politicized management of these firms,” said TIS head Gabriel Sipos speaking at the presentation of the results before journalists on Tuesday. Two-thirds of members of BoDs and supervisory boards in state-run companies are regularly reshuffled in a year after elections while only ten percent of statutory representatives use to survive longer than one election term. They use to stay in state companies for two years on average, which is one-third shorter than in the private sector. Sipos suggests that politically motivated reshuffles worsen instability in companies and support orientation on short-term goals to the detriment of securing long-term health of a company and quality of its services.
Of the checked companies Zeleznicna Spolocnost Slovensko and the public service RTVS had the best result when they gained two-thirds of the possible number of points. They got them for quality publication of economic indicators, contracts and invoices.
SITA