According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) monitoring report for Uzbekistan, the definition of the state and service secrets in the country and what information should be included in such secrets must be clarified. This was announced by organizational consultant Murad Khusanov at the discussion meeting “Government transparency” within the forum Tashkent Law Spring.
The consultant outlined the OECD recommendations for ensuring transparency in Uzbekistan. According to him, establishment of clear mechanisms for customs and taxation, where corruption is likely to be high, widening the capacity of the e-government in the country, defining the order of publicity of publicly available information on the Internet, calculations related to the State Budget should be open. “Clear mechanisms on the imposition of sanctions for information under the notion of state secrets should be controlled,” the OECD representative said.
For information, the Law “On guarantees and freedom of access to information” was adopted in 1997. Article 9 in it states that “State bodies, citizens' self-governing bodies, public associations, enterprises, institutions, organizations and officials should not disclose information which is state secret or other secret protected by law”.
Head of the World Bank's Financial Management Sector on Central Asia Arman Vatyan also made recommendations for ensuring transparency in Uzbekistan. “Citizens should take part in the adoption of any decision affecting the state and society. The government should determine in what international rankings it is necessary to pursue high positions. There is another important point to note: It is true, in most cases the information may be published publicly, but how qualitative and reliable are they?” the expert said.
During the session, the role of openness of the state budget in ensuring transparency of government was also discussed. According to the LLC “Norma” director Michael Perper, the actual state budget figures for 2017 are not disclosed, but only interest and general structure have been presented. In 2018, the state budget report has been published, the 2019 budget plan has been publicly available. “On the portal OpenBudget running in the test mode, citizens can get information about what the budget is going to be spent, and also propose in what spheres it should be invested,” Mr Perper noted.
Earlier it was reported that the capital Tashkent has started the Tashkent Legal Spring international legal forum. Over 1,000 representatives of 37 legal entities from 37 countries are taking part in the forum for the first time.
