Transparency and accountability in spending of public funds

Drawing from the wealth of experience and the lessons learned in implementing Integrity Pacts in more than 28 countries worldwide, Transparency International, in consultation with its national Chapters and partners, has developed this Integrity Pacts Blueprint to guide the implementation of future IPs according to good practice. The blueprint is addressed to practitioners in government, the private sector, civil society and development partners wishing to safeguard public procurement projects with strategic policy, financial and social value.

Public procurement is one of the government activities most vulnerable to corruption, because of the complexity of the process and the engagement between public officials, businesses and other stakeholders. To help governments enhance transparency in public contracting procedures, Transparency International has developed a tool for collective action called the Integrity Pact (IP).ii For the last 12 years, Bulgaria has been perceived as the country with second highest level of corruption in the European Union. This underlines how prevalent the issue is in the country and the need for the immediate prevention and counteraction of public corruption. Transparency International Bulgaria finds itself in a key moment to influence the existing anti-corruption strategic framework, or possibly the national public procurement legislation, by advocating its campaign to promote the use of Integrity Pacts in public procurement and cooperating with all relevant stakeholders.

Policy paper Towards Transparency in Public Procurement. The Legal Enforce ability of Integrity Pacts in Bulgaria was developed by Deya Slavova student in the International and European Law at the Hague University for TI Bulgaria.

The guide is intended for the heads of the Managing Authorities, the administration and all other employees who are currently involved in the development and negotiation the national operational programs. It outlines the benefits of the Integrity Pacts, as well as the minimum conditions for its successful implementation.

In this report the independent observer reflects the findings from monitoring of the design stage and the initial stage of construction: from the end of October 2019 to June 2020. The team highlights a number of risks that are confirmed in the subsequent phases of the construction process.

The focus of this publication is on the amendments to the contracts for the three lots of 28.02.2020, which raise a number of important issues related to the award and implementation of the project.