September/ October 2008

Transparency International Anti-Corruption Work Around the World

Argentina: transparent rubbish collection

By Georg Neumann

Poder Ciudadano (PC), the TI chapter in Argentina, is monitoring the public call for bids for the local rubbish collection services contract in the municipality of Esteban Echeverría.

PC's involvement from the start of the process has already had a great impact. The chapter has enabled the input of citizens into the bidding process, which represents the first case of citizen participation in the decision-making of a municipal administration in the country.

The municipality and PC have signed a "Transparency Agreement," with the latter undertaking to submit recommendations on how to organise the public procurement for local rubbish collection in the most efficient and transparent way, and to monitor the whole process.

One of the recommendations made by PC was the involvement of a public audience in order to discuss and agree the terms of reference, during which citizens would have the opportunity to submit observations, questions etc. The audience was held in May and around 200 citizens attended. Not only was public participation in the audience very constructive, but the municipality addressed all the suggestions and remarks presented by the citizens, and incorporated several of them into the terms of reference.

FULL ARTICLE: <http://www.transparency.org/layout/set/print/publications/newsletter/2008/september_october_2008/anti_corruption_work/argentina_transparent_rubbish_collection>