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TIS: KDH Has Made Biggest Contibution to Fighting Corruption, HZDS Least
Tuesday 27 April 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, April 27 (TASR) - Out of all six parliamentary parties, the opposition Christian Democrats (KDH) have made the biggest contribution to the fight against corruption over the current electoral term, Transparency International Slovakia (TIS) stated on Tuesday.
In this respect, KDH is followed by the other two opposition parties - SDKU-DS and the ethnic-Hungarian SMK. Next came the coalition trio, namely the Slovak National Party (SNS), the strongest ruling Smer-SD, and LS-HZDS, which ended up bottom when it comes to anti-corruption activities, said TIS chairman Gabriel Sipos, adding that the table reflects whether party representatives voted for or against laws related to the fight against corruption in Parliament.
TIS evaluated the attitudes of parties and individual MPs vis-a-vis a total of 25 legislative proposals, of which eight weren't passed. Sipos explained that TIS assessed MPs who were present at voting on at least 13 pieces of anti-corruption legislation. If lawmakers abstained, they were given a neutral (zero) assessment; if they voted against such laws, they received a negative mark; while if they supported anti-corruption legislation, the mark was positive.
As for individual MPs, Pavol Freso (SDKU) received the best rating, followed by Julius Brocka and Daniel Lipsic (both KDH). Conversely, HZDS MPs Tibor Cabaj, Jozef Halecky and Marian Halko had the worst records.
Among coalition MPs, the highest mark went to Jaroslav Paska (SNS), while Alexander Slafkovsky (SDKU) received the lowest mark among opposition lawmakers.
TIS described the Act on Municipal Properties as the piece of legislation that contributed the most to the fight against corruption. Conversely, the Act on Public Services was the biggest offender, along with the Public Procurements Act. The broadly-discussed Act on Disclosure of the Origin of Property was among those that received a negative assessment. Sipos called it "a camouflage, simply an attempt to make it look like something's going on in this sphere".
According to Sipos, in overall terms, the Government led by Robert Fico (Smer-SD) has failed to fight corruption, evidence of which is the fact that it has hardly kept any of its related pledges, while approved legislation proves that the Coalition has been watering transparency down rather than improving it.
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