Completed conference “Corruption and Local Economic Development”

The Final conference entitled “To be or not to be responsible, that is the question” of the project “Corruption and Local Economic Development” was held on 28 March 2013. in Zrenjanin. The conference was opened by the Head of Central Banat District Dusan Sijan, who said that if we want to live better, we have to initiate economic development. – In order to initiate economic development, we have to organize our society. We live in a country that is unsystematically organized and we are aware of that – added Sijan.

The project “To be or not to be responsible, that is the question” supported by the USAID, puts an accent on individual responsibility when it comes to corruption and encourage citizens to influence the work of local self-governance in their municipalities in order to curb corruption.

Manager of the project Vesna Piscevic, who is also the manager of the Business Improvement District – BID from Zrenjanin, explained its essence. – Project and its title deals with the responsibility of all of us, not just as a representatives of some vocations and organizations, but rather in our own lives as the ordinary citizens and our personal contribution to the development of local communities. Corruption is a problem that undermines any local economic development, and I think we all need to take part in fighting the corruption and help our community to develop itself more – said Vesna Piscevic.

The audience was addressed by a representative of the Anti-Corruption Milos Mojsilovic who explained the role of local government in the fight against corruption. – There is a number of specific features of local government that exist because the local government has a large number of jurisdictions and because of the specificity that level of government there are certain peculiarities of corruption that occurs at that level – said Mojsilovic.

Jovana Apić