Register for infrastructure contract information (UA0099)

Searching for contracts for even one object under repair in the electronic procurement system is complicated and time-consuming (the name of a procured item is entered manually and differs within the same project; there is no certainty that the list of contracts found is exhaustive). The above issue results in data separation and redundancy on procured items and, hence, creates an opportunity to manipulate the value of works, depending on the number of contracts, which leads to the need to combine data analysis under an entire project. A register will make it possible to collate data on all contracts and documents pertaining to implementing infrastructure projects. Introducing this register will simplify infrastructure project monitoring mechanisms and ensure effective control of their implementation. 36

Steps Responsible persons Time-frame Partners Performance indicator 1. Developing the algorithm for forming a single infrastructure project identifier Ministry of Infrastructure State Enterprise Industry Center for Digitalization and Cybersecurity (by agreement) January–March 2021 advisory and supervisory group of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) in Ukraine (by agreement) a clear algorithm for forming an identifier has been developed 2. Integrating the infrastructure project identifier into the Ministry of Infrastructure’s register of infrastructure projects —“— March–September 2021 advisory and supervisory group of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) in Ukraine (by agreement) the joint United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and UK Department for International Development (UK aid) project “Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration and Services/TAPAS” (by agreement) reform support team at the Ministry of Infrastructure (RST MoI) the identifier has been integrated into the Ministry of Infrastructure’s register of infrastructure projects

Action Plan Review

Commitment 13: Creation of additional infrastructure project monitoring mechanisms

For a complete description, see Commitment 13 in Ukraine’s 2021–2022 action plan: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/ukraine-action-plan-2021-2022/

Context and objectives:

Upgrading Ukraine’s deteriorating physical infrastructure (such as road and transport systems or the energy sector) is a key national challenge, which if unresolved, prevents stronger economic growth. [33] Ukraine’s “Drive Ukraine 2030” national transport strategy includes USD $60 billion worth of infrastructure investments. [34] The modernization and reform of infrastructure in Ukraine is also an important element of Ukraine’s EU Association Agreement. [35] However, despite huge investment in Ukraine, the management, oversight, and monitoring of infrastructure projects is complex, making it easy for corruption to occur. According to the OECD, the mismanagement of public investments and governance issues (including corruption) mean that comparable construction projects cost 22% more in Ukraine than in the European Union. [36]

Tackling these problems, commitments in Ukrainian action plans have successfully increased transparency in spending and procurement in Ukraine, such as through the Prozorro public electronic procurement system and spending.gov.ua. [37] However, none of these systems use standard identifiers, which would make easier to monitor a single infrastructure project and increase the visibility of potential or actual corruption. [38] In an extreme case that demonstrates this need, a local authority broke down a 1.5km stretch of road into 150 individual infrastructure contracts (to avoid a contract size that would trigger public procurement processes) in order to give the contracts to a preferred company. [39] A single identifier for the infrastructure project could have prevented this by facilitating better monitoring.

This commitment therefore seeks to develop a system to give infrastructure projects a single identifier for all related contracts that can be used across platforms and publish the identifiers in a public register.

The close cooperation between the government and the Construction Sector Transparency (CoST) initiative during previous action plans meant there was already close partnership between those working on this topic. CoST Ukraine, the Ministry of Infrastructure, and teams within the Ministry of Economy developed the commitment together after joint discussions. [40]

Potential for results: Substantial

There is currently no system to create unique identifiers for infrastructure projects and apply these across databases. Infrastructure projects involve multiple contracts with different identifiers depending on the platform (Prozorro, spending.gov.ua, CoST’s “Transparent Infrastructure” portal, transport services, the web portal of the Ministry of Infrastructure, or the electronic services web portal). Both the government and civil society agree that this makes it difficult to monitor projects’ progress. [41] Applying a single, unique identifier for projects across databases would make it much easier to track the different contracts for individual projects, regardless of the name or the number of contracts needed for the project. [42] Simplifying identifying and monitoring projects enables better oversight of implementation and reduces the risk of corruption. Oversight can be done by public authorities, but publishing the identifier information would also enable oversight by citizens, civil society watchdogs, and others.

As part of “Drive Ukraine 2030” (encompassing at least 39 infrastructure projects), [43] Ukraine created a public, centralized register of infrastructure projects that would be the basis for other portals to extract information regarding infrastructure projects. [44] The register would contain the unique identifiers, and CoST Ukraine confirmed that road infrastructure would be the first category to pilot unique identifiers via CoST’s platform. The Prozorro platform already can integrate the unique project identifiers into their online system. [45] These are two key platforms that promote infrastructure project transparency and are used by civil society and others in their monitoring.

While the commitment aims to prevent corruption, the number of investigations may initially rise as new information is uncovered due to the usefulness of unique identifiers in monitoring projects, investigating suspicious contracts, and prosecuting corruption. Therefore, cases that might otherwise go unnoticed or take years to investigate are made evident more quickly because of the unique identifiers.

As explained above, publicly available unique identifiers can increase the risk of being caught for abuse or corrupt practices in public spending. The opportunities for public oversight through the publication of unique identifiers reduces the incentive to bend the rules around procurement or inflate costs, and might lead to a short-term reduction in the number of contracts per project that have not gone to public tender because they are below certain thresholds (at least in relation to road infrastructure where this will be deployed first).

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

Implementing this commitment would make it much easier and quicker to find various contracts related to one infrastructure project. CoST Ukraine recognized that this could benefit the numerous organizations, activists, and investigative journalists monitoring road infrastructure procurement processes, particularly those under “Drive Ukraine 2030.” [46] CoST explained that in the past, state institutions have investigated cases of corruption in road building that civil society initially investigated and reported. They said that whereas it currently takes months to build such cases, an identifier would significantly reduce that time. [47]

Road infrastructure reform is a major spending area in Ukraine, and so focusing the commitment initially to this area is an astute use of resources. However, it would be necessary to begin expansion to other areas of infrastructure and procurement as part of Drive Ukraine 2030 (or beyond) as soon as possible. Civil society groups have already identified social infrastructure contracts as another priority area for unique identifiers, which could be explored. [48]

Expanding unique identifiers may require changes and updates to existing registers. While the Prozorro platform has empty fields that are ready to be populated with unique identifiers for contracts, other databases might need technical updates. This would require further resources but would reduce the risks of corruption by facilitating project monitoring.

While the commitment focuses on transparency, it could also incorporate public accountability tools for effective public feedback and corruption reporting to better ensure tangible results from using single identifiers. This may require expanding systems like DoZorro to other databases and portals, which could better ensure corruption is reported.

With these challenges in mind, the IRM recommends the following during implementation:

Results Report

Commitment 13. Creation of additional infrastructure project monitoring

This commitment aimed to create single identifiers for all infrastructure project contracts to make it easier to monitor projects across different platforms.

In 2021, a team of developers received proposals for single identifiers based on the OC4IDS standard. [114] The developers met with Prozorro, CoST Ukraine, and government agencies to discuss the system. This work was discontinued after the start of the war. Moreover, CoST Ukraine, an important partner in infrastructure transparency and monitoring, closed its office and no longer maintains its Transparent Infrastructure portal, [115] although there were plans to transfer the portal to the government. [116] The DREAM platform, piloted in 2023 after the end of the action plan under Commitment 12, will publish data on reconstruction projects across all stages and in real-time, in line with the Open Contracting Data Standard. [117] Although DREAM will partly cover transparency of infrastructure recovery projects, the lack of unique identifiers means that researchers will still have to conduct a complicated search for project-related procurements. Furthermore, DREAM covers mainly post-war reconstruction works and not all types of infrastructure projects.