The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro have finalized the second phase of the joint project dedicated to the training of the personnel employed with local level authorities as for the application of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance.

The seminar held yesterday in Prokuplje was the last one in the train of seminars held within the project also in Niš, Kruševac, Kraljevo, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Pancevo, Uzice, Smederevo and Jagodina.

On that occasion, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said as follows:

"The Project included ten counties of Serbia. Within the project activities a large number of government bodies' employees in almost 70 municipalities has been encompassed.

It is necessary to continue the above mentioned and similar activities relating to the personnel education, since it is quite obvious that the level of knowledge of personnel employed with government bodies does not enable a quality law enforcement. As a proof of such an assessment may serve serious failures of government bodies, both from the aspect of procedures applied and the aspect of fulfilment of obligations by the authorities.

All the government bodies should take into account that under the Law is explicitly provided for their obligaton to provide necessary level of knowledge for their personnel, that is to say, to carry out necessary training. Unfortunately, so far, save for the measures taken by the Commissioner within this project and also other similar projects realised in co-operation with subjects from non-governmental sector, other government bodies has taken very few, or none. Certainly, we must change such a situation."