Prime Minister Rumen Radev presented the System for Integrated Citizen Monitoring and Analysis (SIGMA). This is a new public tool for transparency in public procurement, developed by the Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation.
The government has taken the first step towards creating an automated system for controlling the spending of public funds and public procurement. This was announced by the Prime Minister at the presentation of the new digital platform for tracking public spending.
According to the Prime Minister, the initiative is part of the commitments made for greater transparency in management and limiting the possibilities for undue influence on state resources. “We have undertaken not only to limit the access of certain economic circles to public resources, but also to create mechanisms that will prevent future control of institutions and public funds“, Radev said.
The Prime Minister emphasized that in the first month of the cabinet's work, an important step was taken towards building an automated control mechanism.
According to him, the Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation has developed a platform that collects and summarizes large volumes of information related to public procurement and the spending of public funds. The system allows for quick tracking of where budget funds go, which companies win contracts and how contractors were selected.
The new tool will provide information on the value of contracts, the number of participants in the procedures and the way in which public procurement was carried out. “It will be possible to clearly see where taxpayers' money goes, which companies win the contracts and whether they were awarded after real competition or with a limited number of participants“, explained the Prime Minister.
According to him, the platform will enable easier detection of risks and potential violations in the awarding of public contracts. Rumen Radev expressed confidence that the system will be useful not only for the state administration, but also for business, the media and control bodies.
“This system will ensure greater transparency and will give the public access to important information on the management of public funds“, he pointed out. The Prime Minister defined the project as an important step towards more effective control over state spending and increasing trust in institutions.
Prime Minister Rumen Radev emphasized that the platform is already working in real time and automatically processes each new public procurement published in the state electronic public procurement system.
According to him, the main advantage is that for the first time the information is summarized and arranged according to various criteria, which makes it easy to track which institutions award the most public procurement contracts, which companies earn the most money and how the contractors are selected.
Radev said that the next stage is for the system to cover interdepartmental payments between state structures, which currently do not fall within the scope of public procurement. “Not all movements of public funds go through public procurement. Therefore, the next step is to track internal payments between state institutions,“ the Prime Minister said.
He also announced that additional functionalities are being developed to automatically detect suspicious practices, including cases of pre-targeted public procurement, favoritism of certain companies, related parties and unreasonably high prices.
“This is the beginning of true transparency in public finances. Without access to information, we cannot effectively fight corruption“, said Radev and called on the media to actively use the platform.
The Minister of Innovation and Digital Transformation Ivan Vassilev presented in detail the SIGMA platform, which brings together data on public procurement from the period 2020-2026.
According to him, the system contains information on over 193,000 contracts and separate items with a total value of over 51 billion leva, concluded by more than 4,400 state institutions and municipalities with over 17,000 companies.
Vassilev explained that the current public procurement system allows access to documents, but does not offer analyses and connections between data. “Until now, the information existed, but was difficult to access and practically impossible for a comprehensive analysis. "SIGMA enables every citizen to track how public funds are spent in seconds," said the minister.
The platform allows searching by institutions, municipalities, companies and specific contracts, showing the method of award, the number of participants and the value of each order.
Among the institutions with the largest volume of public procurements, according to initial data, are the “Road Infrastructure“ Agency, the Ministry of Transport and “Bulgartransgaz“, while among the municipalities, the Sofia Municipality, Burgas, Varna and Plovdiv lead.
The Minister emphasized that the platform is completely free to access and open source, and the data can be exported and used by journalists, non-governmental organizations, researchers and citizens for additional checks and analyses.