Our Work in Local Governance Field was a Breakthrough

An interview with Sara Petrosyan, a journalist and project manager at Hetq Investigative Journalists NGO

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With support of EPF and funding from USAID and UNDEF, Hetq has implemented two stages of Transparent Local Self-Government project aiming to increase transparency among Local Governments in more than 100 communities Armenia wide. The NGO recruited and trained a group of reporters in those regions, produced a series of TV talk shows and short films to highlight the issue, and conducted meetings and a round table discussion with local residents, civil society organizations and representatives of local government. Hetq Investigative Journalists NGO has published courageous and hard-hitting investigative pieces in its own online newspaper, and those stories have been reprinted in a number of popular Armenian newspapers, as well as the Transitions Online Internet Periodical published in the Czech Republic. Their courage and excellence in reporting has not gone unnoticed: in September 2008, the Editor inChief of Hetq, Edik Baghdasaryan, received a prestigious “Global Shining Light award” for outstanding investigative reporting in the direst of circumstances.
Isabella sargsyan, EPF Armenia Project/Communications officer met Sara in their office.

Sara, what you consider the biggest success of the project?

Since establishment in late 1990s, the system of local government in Armenia has been subject to continuous legislative modifications. The reforms, however, did not improve the citizen involvement in and transparency of decision-making at the community level. A law on Local Self Government was adopted some 14 years ago but didn’t function at all and was neglected by the local authorities and central government. Probably thirty out of nine hundred and thirty communities had never read the law. Functions of the Head of the community, role of Community Council; transparency of budgetary expenditures, accountability and public access to information required by the law were ignored in practice. There were communities which used local self government bodies as ‘family enterprises’ engaged in corruption and misuse of budgetary funds. Communities were collecting taxes to pay self-declared salaries for Heads of communities and their family members. Another important problem we discovered was tremendous debt communities had accumulated as a result of non-transparent budget management and fraud. It became a vicious circle since newly elected Head of a community was inheriting debts with his/her position; then he or she had to collect taxes from inhabitants in order to pay the debt and, as a result, a new debt would accumulate and be transferred to a new Head. But the most essential was the fact that people had no idea what the local self government should be in reality.

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As part of the project funded by EPF, we investigated numerous cases and published more than 300 articles on various corruption-related issues, produced two TV talk shows, and conducted 3 round table discussions with local residents, civil society organizations and representatives of local government.
As a result of our publications and talk-shows which were aired on Yerkir-Media TV, the government set up monitoring over the local self government bodies and over the enforcement of the law. Our findings and concerns were confirmed. The project resulted in increased awareness of citizens in targeted communities of both their own rights and the responsibilities of local councils when it comes to decision-making regarding the issues in their own communities. Regular journalistic monitoring over budget expenditures in targeted municipalities resulted in a drastic increase in budget revenues for the current fiscal year. Those were the major results.

Sounds great, could you please mention couple of concrete achievements?

Well, as a result of more transparent and efficient budget management, 6 billion drams (approximately $16 million) countrywide were allocated by communities from the community budgets to local development programs. By the order of the Prime Minister all decisions of the local municipal councils should be published on local and governmental web pages, as well as printed out and placed on boards in the community. The project has also resulted in creation of 21 municipal web pages, most of which already post municipality decisions, budgets and Community Council agendas.

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How difficult was your cooperation with the Government and local authorities?

Of course there were difficulties, especially at the community level where we faced a lot of resistance. However, the central government and especially the Ministry of Territorial Administration proved to have been very supportive. We would hardly achieve such a breakthrough without cooperation with the government.

I know that Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan specially mentioned your project during his meeting with EPF’s President George Zarubin. What was the case?

Prime Minister watched ‘Boiling point’ talk show on Yerkir Media TV where we were discussing cases from Ararat region, effective management strategies and shortcomings in the implementation of the law. Vice-Governor of the region, as well as heads of municipalities we worked with were present, and quite a harsh debate was going on. The Prime Minister was very impressed by our arguments, facts we investigated, and the discussion itself. He asked Deputy Minister for Territorial Administration Mr. Vache Terteryan to watch the show and take measures.

Now, when the project is finished, do you keep track how things are developing in that area?

Of course we are keeping track of what is going on and report about corruption cases in our newspaper and in online publications. I know that media person at the Ministry of Territorial Administration prepares daily media digests for the Minister, which includes materials that we publish, so our work is constantly on their radar screen. Achievements we had as a result of the project became their daily practice, many things got really changed. The most important thing we did is that we raised issues, and we were able to do it in a constructive way, so that they could become the day-to-day business of the government.

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