USD 2.3 million for public finance responsibility improvement

Over the next two years, Serbia will be implementing a USD 2.3 million worth of public finance responsibility mechanism improvement program.

Some of the primary objectives of the program are the prevention of abuse in spending public funds and the improvement of the process transparency.

The program will be implemented by the government institutions of the Republic of Serbia with the support of the UNDP (development program), and it is funded by the Swedish government.

President of the State Audit Institution, Radoslav Sretenovic, said that the budget planned for that institution totaled USD 471,000.

These funds will be used to finance the certification of state auditors and the analysis of applicable laws in that field, and the project will provide support to the development of methodology for the audit of political parties, Sretenovic said at a ceremony of signing a contract on the implementation of this program.

Sretenovic pointed out that the acquisition of licenses for special software which is used during the computer data audit was in the pipeline too.

The ambassador of Sweden in Serbia, Christer Asp, pointed out that the Government of Sweden had been providing financial support to various projects in Serbia for years, adding that Sweden was the third biggest donor in Serbia.

As he stressed, the Government of Sweden has recently adopted a new strategy for the extension of support program for Serbia for seven years more.

Director of the Public Procurement Administration, Predrag Jovanovic, said that the program objective was to eradicate irregularities in public finance and public procurements as a segment of the former.