Events – Page 22 – Albanian Institute of Science

10 organizations meet in Tirana on the Perspective of Open Contracting Standards in the Regio

01/09/2016/in Events, Homeposts, Press Releases /by admin

Open Data against abuse and corruption using public money. Ten regional organizations met in Tirana on 28-29 July at a workshop organized by AIS: Civil Monitoring of Public Procurement. The participants analyzed how transparent the data from different phases of public contracting are and presented some CSO initiatives for citizens’ monitoring of public procurement in Albania, BiH, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Rumania, and Serbia. Considering Public Contracts as the number one risk of corruption, representatives of ACER/SELDI, Alternativa, Riinvest, TI for BiH, Initiativa Romania, Open Data Kosovo, Metamorfoza, ANTTARC, KDI, and AIS emphasized the need for applying Open Contracting Standards in the Region. There was also a presentation of Open Contracting Partnership as an effort for Brighter Government Deal-making: save money and time, improve service delivery, boost integrity, and create a fair business environment. The presentations of the workshop are all published on AIS website.

AIS starts the new program “Transparency with the Public Health Sector Procurements”.

18/08/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

AIS started to work in July on disclosing procurement data from the Health Sector. The newest project on Public Health Sector Procurements will enable the creation, promotion, and use of a well-structured database, which serves as an instrument (tool) for transparency, information, citizens’ monitoring about procurement processes of the Public Health Sector for 2016. Fact-based journalism and fact-based public debate is the final purpose of the creation of such well-structured database. Accordingly, it will provide exhaustive information about every public procurement process in the health sector. The project is supported by the US Embassy in Tirana in the framework of the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program. The database with open data for the Public Health Sector shall be placed on the Open Procurement Albania portal, where data about local government procurement processes are disclosed on daily basis.

‘Civil Society Monitoring Public Procurement and Contracts’ Workshop Tirana, 29 July 2016

30/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

AIS organized on 29 July 2016, in Tirana, a Workshop on Civil Society Monitoring Public Procurement and Contracts.

Roundtables – Promotion of Transparency over Local Government Budgets

25/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts, Press Releases /by admin

The USAID Planning and Local Governance Project (PLGP) in cooperation with the Albanian Institute of Science (AIS) have designed and finalized a platform with several ICT instruments for transparency over the budgets and expenditures of the local government units. During November 2015 – March 2016, work was focused on programing and implementing Money Mapping and a Monitoring Treasury Application. Both instruments are linked with well-structured data catalogues and contain information about the actual budgets, including expenditures for six municipalities for the two last years (2014-2016). The data are also accompanied by a group of articles, which analyze and visualize the real budgets of the municipalities for each of these two years. Everything is being done following the motto Open Governance as Good Governance in order to increase transparency, ensure well-structured information, and communication of the state institutions with the municipalities in creating means that help citizens in increasing their knowledge and encourage them to participate in the budgeting process.

The project also intends to enhance the capacities of the municipality staff members and civil actors in using ICT instruments for good governance and transparency.

Considering transparency a key to encouraging good and accountable governance, this project follows a model of technological innovation and strengthens citizens’ right to information. In both applications, information is made available in a format that is easy to find, understand, and reuse (open knowledge format). Users of such instruments include citizens and civil actors as well as representatives of the Citizens Advisory Panels, public administration members, and media representatives, who report on local government developments.

The applications on Money Mapping and Monitoring Treasury Transaction are already finalized and presented for the six model municipalities, partner local government units of PLGP: Fier, Lushnje, Korça, Elbasan, Berat, and Kuçova.

Municipality of Fier

PLGP – Harta e Parave (Money Mapping ) Fier

Municipality of Lushnja

PLGP – Harta e Parave (Money Mapping ) Lushnje

Municipality of Elbasan

PLGP – Harta e Parave (Money Mapping ) Elbasani

Municipality of Berat

Municipality of Kuçova

Municipality of Korça

Monitorim i Transaksioneve të Thesarit (Monitoring Treasury Application)

Open Local Government Procurement Albania at Data for Development Conference

11/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

AIS Program, Open Procurement Albania (OpenLGP) was presented at a regional conference for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Data for Development Results 2016, held in Istanbul, Turkey, on 8 and 9 June. The project and its database designed as part of efforts made for ensuring that citizens are informed about public procurement and public contracts signed by the local government units in Albania. Its results and impact were addressed by a panel on How is Open Contracting Improving Budgetary Efficiency. Organizations from Euro-Asia and representatives from Open Contracting Partnership spoke at this panel about the benefits of contracting process and hitherto experiences. During the last year, AIS opened data about all tenders made in the first year of the 2015-2019 mandates of the 61 municipalities in the country. OpenLGP is financially supported by NED.

Open Contracting Standard, Government of Albania holds Consultations for Commitment

06/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

Albania is a country with a significant lack of transparency when it comes to public contracts, be it through donations, concessions, PPPs, public works, or rents. AIS, as a member of the Albanian Coalition for OGP has asked the Government to commit to using Open Contracting Standards. The proposal was integrated in the plan of consultations for OGP 2016-2018. AIS is going to organize consultations with some representative thematic groups for finalizing the Action Plan by the month of June.

TransparencyCamp finally in Europe, something Albania could not miss

05/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

An important unconference took place for the first time in Europe on June 1^st, the Transparency Camp Europe. The event took place in Amsterdam in the context of the Netherlands EU Presidency 2016. The participants in this TCampEU included representatives from the civil society in Albania, who became part of European experiences on open data, , and civil engagement. One of the TCampEU activities was the APP Competition, which came as a finalization of tens of events of a DiploHack nature in different cities of Europe. Albania was represented in this event by Alida Karakushi and Ergest Nako, members of the Love in Action team, winners of DiploHack Tirana.

CSOs from 6 countries at POINT 5.0, Political Accountability and New Technologies

04/06/2016/in Events, Homeposts, Press Releases /by Besi Hysa

Political Accountability and New Technologies POINT is a regional conference of civil society organizations from six countries of Southeast Europe, which are intensively engaged in using new technologies in their work. Four speakers at this conference, Eva Meqemeja, Shefiko Hajna, Erald Hoxha, and Besjana Hysa presented the efforts being made by AIS (an Albanian NGO) to track the money and the interests of high political leaders in power for purposes of establishing some civic monitoring instruments through Open Data.

How have Municipalities done their tenders! Contracts with Direct Negotiations and Investment Tenders

11/04/2016/in Events, Homeposts /by admin

Open Data Albania has inquired into the number of tender procedures and fund limits for public procurement announced by 61 local government units (municipalities) following the recent administrative-territorial division. The research article is based on the database of the Transparent Procurement portal. The portal contains information about every public procurement procedure for each of the 61 new local government units from July 2015 onwards.

Public Procurement (total number and value). During this period, there has been a total number of 1290 procedures announced for a fund limit of 92 billion (new) lekë. Each of these public procurement procedures is listed on the Transparent Procurement portal, under the Tenders section. The Municipality of Tirana is the municipality with the highest fund limit for procurements in this period. Tirana has announced 129 tenders with a value of 2.28 billion lekë. Tirana is followed by the Municipality of Durrës with 50 procedures and a fund limit of 931.79 million lekë. The Municipality of Fier comes third by its fund limit. This municipality has announced 59 tenders for a fund limit of 899.85 million lekë. The list of the 10 municipalities with the highest fund limit includes also the municipalities of Korça, Saranda, Berat, Divjaka, Gjirokastra, Kavaja, and Librazhd. The list of the 10 municipalities with the lowest fund limit for tenders includes Ura Vajgurore, Mirdita, Përrenjasi, Delvina, Libohova, Fushë – Arrëzi, Pogradeci, Tepelena, Dropulli, Memaliaj, and Pusteci. The article with the Table and Visualizations Public Procurement by Municipalities, announced during July 2015 – April 2016.
Direct Negotiations refer to public procurement procedures through which the contracting authority selects the economic operators itself and negotiates the contract terms with one or more of them. The decision to apply such procedure must be grounded and justified by conditions that force the authority to act in this way. Being a type of public procurement without any competition, the Direct Negotiations carry the risk of a high exposure to fund misuse. In total, this period has seen 150 public contracts finalized through direct negotiations. The fund for these public procurement procedures is 83 million lekë. Each of these public procurement procedures is listed in the Transparent Procurement portal, under the Tender with Negotiations section. Municipalities of Tirana, Elbasan, Kamza, Vau i Dejës, Rrogozhina, Korça, and Lezha are the municipalities with the highest number of direct negotiations. In this sense, extension of contracts are also considered direct negotiations the procuring authorities do this (extend contracts) every time they face expiry of timeframes of purchases, or recognizes the need for additional works or services. Only 37 out of 61 municipalities have applied the procedure of direct negotiations. Direct negotiations for more than 5 million lekë were applied by the municipalities of Elbasan, Tirana, Maliq, Konispol, Vau i Dejës, Rrogozhina, and Kamza. You may find the article by reading Contracts with Direct Negotiations by Municipalities, announced from 20 July 2015 until 7 April 2016
Public Investments (tenders). This period marked a total of 269 procurements for public works for a value of 07 billion lekë. It results that 68% of the fund limit tendered by the municipalities during this time period was intended for investments, the rest to supplies of goods and services. The figures include only investments tendered by the municipalities themselves, and not public works tendered by the Albanian Development Fund or central government units that correspond with investments in their territories. Each of these public procurement procedures is listed with the Transparent Procurement portal, under the category of public Works, using the search filter ‘type of contract’. The Municipality of Korça and that of Fier have the highest fund limits for public works. They are followed by Tirana, Durrësi, Saranda, Berati, Divjaka, Gjirokastra and Librazhdi. Two municipalities, Fushë Arrëzi and Pogradeci have not yet realized any procurement of public works, depriving their administrative units of the benefits and economic effects of investments. Thus, the four municipalities with the minimum funds used for Public Procurement are Tepelena, Kukësi, Pusteci and Memaliaj. The article can be found on Investments, Procurement for Public Works by Municipalities, announced during July 2015 – April 2016.

The portal intends to make the information about tenders and public procurements of the 61 municipalities in the country transparent and easily traceable. Using search filters, procurements can be categorized by their types of contracts, like Public Procurement (investments), Supply of Goods (purchase), Services, etc. in addition, each tender can be categorized by the number of participants, and an assessment of the difference between the fund limit available and the value of the winning offer. Afterwards, information is updated by the number of participants in the competition, the winner, the status of the project, the contract term, and payments according to the Treasury Transactions. AIS is the organization that implements this project. This organization promotes Open Data for Albania.

Open LGP Albania Project presented at Personal Forum Democracy, Poland 2016

21/03/2016/in Events, Homeposts, Press Releases /by admin

The Personal Forum Democracy 2016 took place on 17 and 18 March in Gdansk, Poland, for Central and Eastern Europe (PFD 2016). This forum is led every year in Poland as an effort of the civil society to use technology for democratization and civil engagement. The speakers and workshop moderators this year focused on how we can bring people together to encourage public debate. Citizens’ participation, use of technology for transparency, and awareness through open are subject to dozens of civil society programs in Central and Eastern European countries.

The PFD 2016 included also a presentation of AIS Project on monitoring local government public procurement and contracts, i.e. Open Local Government Procurement (OpenLGP). The presentation was part of the Monitoring Procurements – Experiences from Albania and Hungary workshop. The three moderators of this workshop were Shefiko HAJNA from AIS, Anita KONSCIK from K-Monitor, and Eva MEQEMEJA from AIS. The two models and portals developed by the civil society in Albania and Hungary provide instruments for citizens to monitor how their governments procure works, services, or purchases, using public money. Making tenders transparent and easy to be monitored by the citizens, each program leads also to taxpayers being involved in checking for accountability. The data opened regarding public procurement carry clear and comprehensive information about values, deadlines, quality of competition, and subject of procurements. The information reveals also the areas and contracts, which pose a risk of abuse or corruption. The workshop was attended by a great number of participants. The regional organizations showed an interest in getting involved in the process of opening information for Open Procurements and Open Contracting.

This presentation held in the context of the Personal Forum Democracy 2016 precedes a workshop focused on Civil Monitoring of Public Procurements and Contracts for the countries of the region (Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.), which is going to be held in July in Tirana. Our program OpenLGP is being developed as an efforts for open data and civil monitoring with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy NED.