Public money, public agreements

The idea

Let us change our national laws so that a public administration must use public accounting.

public accounting

A form of accounting where every contract, every invoice and every transaction is published in the periodic declaration.

As citizens we have the right to do our own financial analysis in order to find out or verify how our money is being spent, how much some decision or project actually costs.

When you make business with a public administration, you agree to the condition that your contracts and invoices and financial transactions with that public administration will be published.

Why

This law will ensure that public administrations cannot enter into secret agreements. A public administration has no right to privacy.

This law will reduce corruption, increase quality of services, reduce disenchantment with politics, increase citizen participation, increase trust in democracy, reduce conspiracy theories…

How

This change doesn’t need any international concertation, every nation will do it when they are ready for it.

Any active contracts with a non-disclosure clause can continue, but the non-disclosure clause becomes void. It becomes void by national law, not because one of the partners decided so. If one of the partners decides to end the contract prematurely because the national laws changed, they may do so according to the contract’s terms. Existing contracts that mention such confidential information can be changed before the new law gets active.

Special cases

Price offers and drafts don’t need to be public because that would disturb the free market. Salaries to the clerks won’t become public because privacy is a human right.

Certain public administrations will receive special permission to remain secret. For example those involved in security (e.g. police or army) or the payment of salaries to the clerks. But even these administrations will have a duty to report upon request to authorized auditing administrations.