The laws regulating the administration of complaints of citizens do not need any drastic changes, First Deputy Head of the Belarus President Administration Natalia Petkevich told reporters as she received residents of Stolbtsy on 25 August, BelTA has learnt. The meeting took place as part of the third phase of the examination into the cooperation of local level authorities with citizens.

According to Natalia Petkevich, Belarus is doing an enormous amount of work to look into the complaints of people. Belarus is the only country in the post-Soviet space that has developed the legal and regulatory framework regulating the processing of complaints. Other countries are adopting this practice. “We have pioneered this practice to a large extent. We have done a lot; we have created a good legal framework spelling out the processing procedures. Now we need to put it into practice,” Natalia Petkevich said.

She emphasized that although the monitoring revealed some mistakes and failures, she could not say that the chairmen of district and town executive committee did a bad job. The executives might have overlooked some issues. “The issues should be addressed by concerted efforts of all of us, we should work together towards common tasks,” Natalia Petkevich said.

She underlined that the monitoring revealed no serious or threatening problems that might affect the economic situation in the country. The issues brought up by the people demonstrate their trust in the authorities. There is even some positive feedback regarding the work of some services.

Natalia Petkevich emphasized that the monitoring is not a one-off campaign, but constant work. “One of the first things the President did when he was elected in 1994 was setting up working groups that toured the regions to identify the issues facing ordinary citizens. This work has been carried out for many years already, but not always it receives media coverage,” Natalia Petkevich said.

She added that not all the problems can be settled immediately. What matters most is that the problems are exposed and responded to. Very often, it does not happen as not everyone fulfills their duties conscientiously.