As part of its national anti-corruption strategy, Hungary intends to join the Open Government Partnership (OGP) later on this year, State Secretary Bence Rétvári announced on 15 April. The step has been urged by various Hungarian NGOs since the official launch of the OGP last September.
Although the Government has not yet sent its letter of intention to the Steering Committee of OGP nor has any public consultation been initiated, K-Monitor Watchdog for Public Funds intends to raise awareness of the importance of the Partnership.
K-Monitor reviewed several action plans to identify best practices and areas of weakness in different country commitments. According to us, some of the commitments made by OGP member states seriously lack new ideas - they are mere repetitions of vague campaign promises or ongoing legislation projects. Furthermore, commitments should not focus solely on communication issues: without specific plans and tools the “promotion of transparency” as such is merely a bluff.
Only detailed and substantiated commitments may lead to a real change in opening up public datasets. Therefore K-Monitor urges the Hungarian Government to increase public integrity through steps such as adopting open data standards in public administration, developing a comprehensive database for governmental contracts as well as opening up complete datasets on a single governmental website (such as company registers, land registers, meteorological data, etc). We also urge the government to take steps towards more transparent legislation on lobbying as well as party and campaign financing.
The preparation period of the Hungarian Action Plan shall prove if the Government is truly committed to the fight against corruption and transparency. Detailed recommendations of K-Monitor are to be found here in Hungarian. K-Monitor has strong intentions to take part in the development as well as the monitoring process of the Hungarian Action Plan.
