Transparency of Pandemic-Related Spending and Recovery (BG0084)

What is the public problem being addressed by the measure? Overcoming the crisis caused by the pandemic is a long process that requires huge resources. At the national level, and especially at the EU level, finances of an unprecedented scale have been foreseen. Many funds are inevitably associated with increased control over their spending. In countries like Bulgaria, where there is systematic corruption, the risk of losing and/or inefficiently spending funds is high, and hence the socio-economic recovery is in question. To this must be added the urgency of the measures that are taken and their quick implementation, which reduce control and transparency /especially in the case of public procurement/. The set of these circumstances reduces the possibility of real monitoring carried out both by the responsible institutions and by civil society. In a dynamic environment, it is often difficult for the administration to control the spending of funds, and in some cases the rules for investing them change and make control even more difficult. From the point of view of the overriding public interest in publicity, transparency, efficiency, accessibility and timeliness of public resources to deal with the pandemic, there should be high standards that prevent the corruption risk in spending the funds.

What does the measure consist of? The measure has two components. On the one hand, it envisages the creation of a multidisciplinary team of representatives of public institutions, industry and employer organizations, trade unions and civil organizations at the National 2The term refers to the specific realization of the activities under the measure. Once the board is established and the information consolidated accordingly, the expectation is that they will operate as an integral part of the overall anti-corruption state institutional framework. 25 Council for Anti-Corruption Policies, whose task will be to carry out monitoring, analysis and preparation of recommendations in relation to anti-corruption measures in the spending of public funds (European and national) to address the health and socio- economic aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The multidisciplinary team will be established as a permanent working group of the Council. Through the activity of this team, the NCAP will be able to offer to the attention of the Council of Ministers and other relevant institutions standards and protocols for the work of the bodies to reduce the corruption risk and increase institutional accountability and transparency, and will function as part of the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policies at the Council of Ministers. Another activity of the team is the collection of information and its publication in the Unified Information Portal - COVID-19 | coronavirus.bg., for: - expenses incurred by central and local government bodies, including contracts under Art. 13 of the Law on Measures and Actions during the State of Emergency (LMASE); - donation details; - payments under socio-economic measures, payments made to deal with the health aspect of the crisis and other current information.

How will the implementation of the measure contribute to solving the problem? The implementation of the measure will increase transparency in the spending of funds and lead to a significant reduction of the corruption risk. A side result will be increased trust in institutions at the national and local level. The implementation of the measure will be a proactive activity on the part of the state authority aimed at citizens, media and business. The transformational effect will be that it offers an innovative tool for increasing transparency and accountability.

How does the measure relate to the values of the initiative? The measure is relevant to all four principles of the Initiative. It works towards transparency and accountability (of the spending of public resources on 26 a socially sensitive topic such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the socio-economic recovery from it); envisages citizen participation and technological innovation (through the consolidated real-time registry).

More information (including budget for implementation of the measure) The measure does not provide for the allocation of financial resources. Participation in the National Anti-Corruption Policy Council is free of charge, and the administration's activity under the proposed measure will not require additional/overtime work. Activities for and measurable results of the implementation of the measure: Starting date3 Date of completion of activity: Creation of a multidisciplinary team in the form of a working group at the National Council for Anti-corruption Policies 01.09.2022 30.11.2022 Inventory, cataloging and indexing of state agency structures and type of payments in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic 01.12.2022 28.02.2023 Receiving and summarizing information received from state agency structures 01.01.2023 Continuing until 31.12.2024. Start the process of publishing information on the costs of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic on the Unified Information Portal - COVID-19, including in a machine- readable and open format. 01.02.2023 28.02.2023 Public presentation of the measure 01.03.2023 31.03.2023

Action Plan Review

Commitment 6. COVID-19 Task Force

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Substantial

(National Council on Anti-Corruption Policies at the Council of Ministers, Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives)

For a complete description of the commitment, see Commitment 6 in Bulgaria’s 2022–2024 Action Plan: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/bulgaria-action-plan-2022-2024/.

Context and objectives

This commitment aims to establish a national COVID-19 task force, as well as to consolidate and publish national data on public expenses related to the pandemic. The Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives (BILI) proposed this commitment during the initial stage of the co-creation process, drafting the commitment during the November–December 2021 working group consultations of the Council on Coordination on OGP. [1] The Council and government adopted the commitment as drafted by BILI. The commitment would implement transparency measures from the National Strategy for Preventing and Countering Corruption (2021–2027). [2]

The COVID-19 pandemic brought serious challenges to Bulgaria’s healthcare system, government efficiency and openness, and protection of fundamental rights. [3] An Access to Information Programme article shows that early in the pandemic, the government did not publish all relevant legal documents, including on preventive measures by the Minister of Health. [4] BILI’s report on criminal and administrative court cases demonstrates that public health activities did not yield satisfactory results. [5] The report adds that the authorities did not develop an adequate strategy for public awareness and instead relied on repressive and criminal law methods to address widespread noncompliance with public health measures (such as monetary sanctions and criminal prosecutions), which were often subsequently quashed by courts. At the same time, there was a lack of investigations into serious corruption allegations, although corruption risks were high. BILI noted two major corruption risks during the pandemic. First, there was considerable mismanagement of pandemic finances, particularly for vaccines, tests, medicinal preparations, medical devices and equipment, and capital construction. Second, for a certain time period, the government and parliament limited application of the Public Procurement Act for pandemic-related procurement, which increased the possibility for misuse of state and EU funds, and price speculation. [6] A report on public procurement integrity by the Southeast European Legal Development Initiative adds that as the first wave of the pandemic hit Europe, countries like Bulgaria saw a considerable uptick in COVID-19-related product purchases and corruption risks associated with these purchases and the wider healthcare market. [7] The report indicates that a few companies skimmed the vast majority of the extra funding in the healthcare sector, illustrating serious issues with clientelism in Bulgaria and the region. [8]

The commitment has two components. [9] First, it outlines plans for a task force to be created, with representatives of public institutions, industry and employer organizations, trade unions, and CSOs. In March 2023, during the first stages of implementation, the task force was established by order of the Prime Minister, co-chaired by representatives of BILI and the Administration of the Council of Ministers, and including representatives of ministries, the Agency for State Financial Inspections, and the National Statistical Institute. [10] This task force would analyze the spending of pandemic-dedicated public funds and recommend measures, standards, and protocols for institutions to reduce corruption risks and increase institutional accountability and transparency. The commitment emphasizes the participation of a wide range of public and private organizations, representing different societal groups and possibly minorities. The second component focuses on improving the collection and consolidation of information on pandemic-related spending and its publication on Bulgaria’s COVID-19 Unified Information Portal (coronavirus.bg). [11] These two components are relevant to civic participation and transparency.

Potential for results:Substantial

Interviewed state and civil society experts stressed that the task force is Bulgaria’s first body specifically focused on developing anti-corruption measures for an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic. [12] According to the research director of the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), the pandemic is an important field for anti-corruption measures, given the length of the crisis, management by different institutions, and a considerable amount of dedicated funds. [13]

Pandemic-related spending included healthcare expenses and financial state aid to struggling businesses in order to keep their employees. The task force has begun gathering information from the largest beneficiaries, such as hospitals and big employers, and oversight authorities to devise appropriate analysis and anti-corruption measures. By April 2024, it is expected to collect and analyze information from across public institutions, and produce two reports with recommendations on spending of public funds during the pandemic. While the commitment does not outline the exact composition, a state expert expected the task force to gather a diverse range of public and private institutions, including nationally-financed media, that are interested in funding related to COVID-19. [14]

The commitment plans for the task force to become a permanent working group of the National Council for Anti-Corruption Policies, which could support long-term sustainability beyond the period of the fourth action plan. Although this Council has been inactive in recent years, [15] the Prime Minister may order it be reengaged. A civil society representative anticipates that in the future, the task force could serve as a blueprint when preparing anti-corruption measures for events of similar magnitude, like the war in Ukraine or care for refugees, and could come up with solutions to the structural problem of misallocation and opaque spending of public funds for emergency situations. [16] Because the task force is a policy drafting and advisory body in nature, its success ultimately depends on the extent to which the government adopts its recommendations on crisis management and anti-corruption policies.

Currently, Bulgaria’s COVID-19 Unified Information Portal provides data on the pandemic’s spread and information on how to benefit from related economic measures. [17] However, it does not provide clear information on the spending of public and EU funds allocated to the pandemic response. The author of the commitment noted that different institutions have their own public registers on spending, which makes it difficult to form a complete understanding of government spending. [18] The research director of the CSD added that the System for Electronic Budget Payments and the Public Procurement Register do not indicate whether payment or procurement is related to the pandemic or another emergency situation, which makes it difficult to track dedicated funds. [19] BILI’s director explained that under this commitment, the task force could audit the existing public information, decide which data to consolidate in one location, and publish in an open format. From her perspective, this could ease tracking of spending in designing optimization measures and historic analyses of spending. This information could be made available on the COVID-19 Unified Information Portal. [20]

It has not yet been determined whether this initiative will publish new data. According to a state expert, the Ministry of Health, which is not directly involved in the commitment, has now taken over the portal. The task force will publish its reports on this portal. Consolidated data might also be made available on the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policies’ website. This could further the Council’s role as a hub for anti-corruption measures and data.

The main expected outcomes of the commitment have substantial potential for results. For the first time, an institutionalized working group could carry out a focused and sustained effort to identify problems and corruption risks in past and ongoing pandemic-related spending and make real-time proposals for anti-corruption measures. Consolidation and publication of open data would both strengthen the task force’s analyses and give the public the opportunity to reuse the data for greater transparency on crisis spending and the task force’s work. The task force could establish a methodology for future transparent and accountable public spending in emergency situations.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

A crucial advantage to the commitment’s feasibility is the fact that, unlike other commitments in the action plan, its implementation does not require legislative reform or a reform of bylaws. Thus, the commitment does not depend on the parliamentary process, and it could be acted upon by either an elected or appointed interim government. Implementation may depend on civil society-government cooperation, and in particular, navigation of current political instability and the short duration of governments in recent years. Regarding the task force, the IRM recommends:

· Ensure effective operation of the task force to facilitate transparent decision-making. Meetings of the task force could be scheduled to curb dependency of initiative by the government (and consequently, curb the dependency on the current political instability). To ensure progress is made, members of the task force could define a timetable of deliverables early on. Furthermore, the task force could make minutes of meetings, decisions, and recommendations transparent and allow for public comments and feedback.

· Build on the reengaged task force as a mechanism to make anti-corruption recommendations. The task force’s scope could be expanded, or its structure duplicated to focus on other areas of anti-corruption policy in Bulgaria. More broadly, these various task forces could be adapted to serve the implementation of the National Strategy for Preventing and Countering Corruption (2021–2027). A further step could include the Council of Ministers committing itself to providing feedback and publishing any official response to recommendations (in a timely manner) from the task forces.

· The task force could aim to consolidate and make financial data on the pandemic openly traceable from its source (the state or EU budget lines) through beneficiaries to the final subcontractors, as advised by the Open Spending EU coalition. [21] The task force could make this information available as open data according to international open contracting standards. The task force could also consider options like including a single indicator in the System for Electronic Budget Payments and the Public Procurement Register, which would make future emergency funds traceable.