Continued EBRD support for the development of inspection oversight
Draft amendments to the Law on Inspection Oversight will be placed for public debate by the end of September, with the aim of further improving the efficiency of inspections and ease the burden and costs imposed to responsible businesses by unnecessary controls. The key word is trust, as in the future companies will need to perform more frequent self-evaluations instead of being subject to inspection oversight.
- A particular quality of the reform of inspection is the fact that we closely cooperate with businesses, their associations and representatives of 41 inspections. We also worked together on implementing the law and after two full years of implementation, we jointly prepared a Draft which would go a step further and improve the existing legislation with new reform solutions. They introduce a shift of focus from punishment to prevention, risk assessment and improved trust between the inspections and businesses - said the Minister of Public Administration and Local Government Branko Ružić at the 14th session of the Coordination Commission for Inspection Oversight, organized on Tuesday, 18 September at the Palace of Serbia.
The event involved the signing of agreements between the Ministry and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and between the Ministry and NALED, regarding the two-year extension of cooperation for the development of Support Unit to Coordination Commission.
As the Commission's administrative body, among other things, the Unit helped the establishment of 11 inspections working groups for the priority fields of supervision (illicit trade, countering informal employment, food etc.) and the development of 21 workflows for countering illicit trade of tobacco, coffee, flour and other sensitive goods. It provided a particular contribution towards strengthening the transparency of inspections which currently report on their activities and results on a monthly basis.
- Thanks to the work performed by the Unit, we no longer have overlaps among inspections, and the team now manages the next major reform step - the introduction of the e-inspector system, which is expected to further improve the inspection results. Together with the line Ministry and NALED, we seek additional ways to help the businesses and we are considering the option of introducing and information center, where all businesses, particularly small ones, could find answers to the questions regarding inspection oversight, and the solutions for situations they face during control visits – said the Director of EBRD for the Western Balkans Zsuzsanna Hargitai.
The Vice President of NALED Managing Board and the General Manager of Gomex Goran Kovačević welcomed the reform process in the field of inspection oversight and commended the efforts to make it even more efficient, particularly stressing the improvement of the transparency of border inspections, being a key address for all importers. He also appealed to inspectors to place a stronger focus on revealing the non-registered businesses, which account for even 17% of the total number of businesses.
In this sense, Kovačević invited the state to strengthen the human and technological capacities of inspections and better use the existing resources by applying risk assessment mechanisms. Kovačević added that the businesses are particularly looking forward towards the announced launching of the information center which, if it also maintained a registry of inspection practices, would act as some sort of a „business ombudsman“.
