Transparency International uncovered falsifications in Ternopil and excluded it from the Transparency City Ranking.

The 'Transparent Cities' program decided for the first Time in history not to include the city of Ternopil in the 2024 Transparency Ranking due to the substitution of information on the official website of the city council. This decision was made after the discovery of falsified data provided by the council in response to the organization's requests.

As a result of the identified manipulation with links and replacement of information, the city was not included in the Open Data Pulse ranking. Other violations were also found, such as substituting materials on the city council's website to improve ranking results.

«We do not seek to 'punish' local government bodies; we aim to protect the principles of good governance and help build resilient and sustainable systems. We publicly uphold the boundary - manipulations on city council websites for positions in rankings are unacceptable. And no previous achievements will negate this,» said Executive Director of TI Ukraine Andriy Borovik.

The analytical team decided to intensify checks on other cities for similar violations and implement changes in the evaluation methodology to avoid similar cases in the future. The presentation of the results of the 2024 Transparency Ranking will take place on May 19.

Analysis

The situation with the detection of manipulations in Ternopil highlights the importance of monitoring the transparency of government activities. To ensure the correctness and reliability of information provided to the public, additional control and verification measures must be taken. Transparency International Ukraine will continue to improve its methodology for effective monitoring of the public administration sector.