Between 27 May 2015 and 12 June 2015, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection conducted an analysis of 18 information booklets about the work of local self-government authorities, including authorities of the City of Belgrade and the authorities of city municipalities formed by the City of Belgrade.

The analysis of the eighteen information booklets published by the said authorities has revealed that none of them are fully compliant with the law and the Instructions on Preparation and Publication of Information Booklets.

Overall, the situation is highly unsatisfactory. The City of Belgrade and its municipalities have not complied with their legal duty to publish and regularly update information booklets on their work. Particularly worrying is the fact that they have failed to comply even after receiving a warning from the Commissioner last year.

According to the analysis, of the 18 information booklets, 10 of them presented the approved 2014 budget: these included the information booklets of the City of Belgrade and the city municipalities of Cukarica, Novi Beograd, Savski venac, Vozdovac, Zemun, Zvezdara, Barajevo, Obrenovac and Surcin. However, only the City Municipality of Novi Beograd has presented complete data, including the execution of its 2014 budget.

Public procurement plans for 2014 have been presented by 7 city municipalities, while the City of Belgrade has not done so for all of its Secretariats. Only 4 city municipalities have provided complete information, covering both planned and conducted public procurements: Novi Beograd, Zemun, Zvezdara and Lazarevac.

As regards 2015, no city municipalities of Belgrade have provided complete information on their budgets and public procurements.

Data regarding salaries clearly relating to 2015 (which should be presented and updated on a monthly basis according to the Instructions) have been presented by only two municipalities: Stari grad and Vracar.

These facts clearly show that this analysis has once again confirmed the already observed tendency of local self-government authorities to either not update the data contained in their information booklets or to do so only when prompted by the Commissioner. The Commissioner will continue with controls and warnings, but he would nevertheless like to take this opportunity to reiterate that failure to publish an information booklet on the work of a public authority is an infringement punishable under the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance. With this in mind, the Commissioner expects the competent ministry in charge of public administration and local self-government to initiate infringement proceedings against the responsible persons. The fact that competent ministries have refrained from filing charges for such violations of the law and the resulting chronic lack of accountability is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the lax attitude of local self-governments regarding the duties they owe to the public.