AIS increases transparency over municipalities on the eve of local government elections, monitoring 4 years of performance

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The organization AIS is a promoter of transparency and open data. Databases created and maintained by AIS enable monitoring of public expenditures, public procurement, management of the public assets and distribution of budgets by local government units. July 2018 marks exactly three years from the emersion of the new municipalities resulted from the latest administrative-territorial division. the latest administrative-territorial division. This year could be well considered the electoral year, carrying the 2019 local elections. AIS invites citizens, activists, and journalists to monitor the work and integrity of municipality leaders by using also transparent databases available in the open format opendata, which are easy to find, use, and reuse.

Monitor Contracting through Data, Health Sector Albania

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Monitor Contracting through data in the Health Sector, shining light on issues related with the distribution of money by contractors. 13 thousand contracts awarded by institutions of public health in the country (2016 – 2018) to 586 contractors , business companies. Thus, 61% of these contracts were finalized through tender procedures involving one single competitor, while 25% through closed tender procedures with negotiation . Transparent Procurement in the Health Sector not only opens up data about contracting in this sector, but it also provides opportunities for analyzing and visualizing information. This database will soon involve the application of a red flag algorithm identifying tenders posed to a risk of inequality, lack of competition, or situations of clientelism.

Database of Concessionary Companies – Information on their Contracts and Performance

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A concessionary register by the civil society versus the Government register. It is 222 business companies involved in concessionary agreements or PPPs with the Albanian Government, which anyone may monitor on our database OpenCorporates.al, under the ‘Concessionary Companies’ category . It contains information for each company regarding their structure, ownership, history of ownership transfer, annual performance in terms of turnover and profit, concessionary fees, address and licenses for the activities they carry out, etc. This range of data for each passport is published in JSON and CSV as open data formats. The information passports are accompanied by links to documents like contracts, amendments to contracts, special laws, procurement acts, and other documents relevant to concessions. The Albanian Government is involved in a high number of public-private partnerships in the recent years in sectors like energy, health care, education infrastructure, road infrastructure, telecommunication, services, etc.

Treasury Transactions. Weekly Payments made by State Budget Institutions

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Everything about taxpayers’ money. Treasury Transaction is a well-structured database, which anyone may access for information about money paid by the state institutions from 2012 up to the present. The database contains data about all payments made by more than 1600 state budget institutions in the country. Using search filters, users may find information about payments by their date, amount, paying institution, beneficiaries, type of expenditure, number of invoice, etc. The data are officially provided by the State Treasury salary system, but AIS brings them in an open data and well-structured format, which is integrated into an application developed by AIS for this purpose. This database helps the public and taxpayers answer the question “Where does my Money go!?” It also enables journalists to report on certain payments and Government clients . The database is an instrument that makes it easier also for business operators to access and use the information made available.

Pozicion Pune Programues , Webmaster

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AIS është në kërkim të një personi për ta punësuar me kohë të plotë në pozicionin e punës Programues ose Web Developer.

Personi duhet të ketë të paktën tre vite eksperiencë pune në këtë profil, njohuri në PHP/ JS / njohuri të mira në administrim databaz-ash në MYSQL (QUERY).

Preferohen edhe kandidatët që kanë njohuri në gjuhën gjermane, pasi kandidatë të suksesshëm mund të transferohen pas 6 deri 12 muajve në një subjekt të ngjashëm në shtetin Gjerman.

Pagesa neto është 900 USD, me kontribute dhe tatime të paguara. Java e punës është 35 orë.

Nëse jeni të interesuar ju lutem shkruani në [email protected] duke përcjellë një CV tuajën në një email me titull Aplikim Web Developer.

AIS organized a roundtable to present monitoring findings within the Project of Electoral Entity Donor Conflict Monitoring Project.

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In the framework of its Monitoring Conflict of Interest for Donors of 2017 Electoral Campaign Project, AIS organized a launching event on 25 May at Tirana Times Library presenting the monitoring results. The event included also discussions on: Influence and conflict of interest beyond the law and proposals for more effective regulation of conflicts of interest of electoral donors. Discussion was intensive, focusing on undeclared donors and donations, the added value of electoral campaign monitoring, problems with reporting and discrepancies between online reporting and external (independents). Participants included journalists with an extensive experience in the media, young journalists from the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism, representatives from the CEC, and representatives from civil society organizations.

OPENING DATA FOR A MORE TRANSPARENT SOCIETY – AIS is represented for the sixth year at Political Accountability and New Technologies Conference, POINT 7.0, Sarajevo.

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It is now a tradition for AIS to participate in POINT Conference (Political Accountability and New Technologies). POINT is a regional conference that takes place in Sarajevo and welcomes NGOs from several countries of the Eastern Europe, that promote open technology and open data.

Two representatives from AIS, Besjana Hysa and Viola Civici in their talk on “Opening Data for a more Transparent Society” presented the platforms developed for data disclosure. While Open Procurement informs different stakeholders on how public works are contracted, the equality of competition among economic operators, how public money is distributed to different public institutions (focusing on municipalities),Open Corporates highlights indications of clear irregularities with the competition, list of companies contracted with public money, their owners etc. Both these databases are powerful instruments that can be used for watchdog monitoring purposes, making information public and accessible for everyone. Making these data public has helped discover many irregularities in public procurement procedures and has increased the number of investigative articles and public denouncement of several cases.

Moreover, the focus of the talk was on declaration of assets, incomes and financial obligations. Through spending.data.al, AIS has made public the asset declarations of more than 644 high level officials, with the aim to inform the public about the economic interests and assets of the high public officials, who represent and govern the country.

AIS OPENING DATA FOR A MORE TRANSPARENT SOCIETY Presentation – here

Findings about Conflicts of Interest of Electoral Donors

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In the framework of its Monitoring Conflict of Interest for Electoral Donors Project, AIS has processed data for 66 donors of the electoral subjects running in the 2017 elections. The number of declared donors is much smaller than perceived by the public. The financing of electoral subjects remains an issue with indications and facts making the public perceive it as a phenomenon involving money generated through informal or criminal activities. The current Electoral Code provides for situations, where donation can be made in exchange for certain material interests or influence. AISr monitoring report identified two cases constituting a violation of the law. AIS has also drafted some proposed amendments to the law, which are submitted to the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee on Electoral Reform.

Money and Power, assets of members of the Council of Ministers declared for 2017

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Monitoring assets, influence, and economic interests is a process that increases the integrity of high-level public officials. The Money and Power Section under the Spending Data Albania portal enables the public to learn about asset declaration. Such data are not yet accessible through official databases. Considering public monitoring equally important to institutional monitoring, AIS published the data regarding assets declared by the members of the Council of Ministers for the fourth year . The data refer not only to the amount of incomes, but to the economic interests of the members of the Council of Ministers as well. This makes it possible to monitor whether their policymaking is related with any tax regimes or institutional practices serving certain individual interests.

Open Albanian Local Government Contracting

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Portal Through this portal, the Albanian Institute of Science (AIS) promotes and implements the Open Contracting Standard The information is extracted from closed and non-consistent formats published by Government authorities. Making such data open and user friendly, AIS provides an information mechanism about procurement procedures, and for such procedures to be monitored and scanned. Through a RedFlag algorithm , the portal helps with identifying and evaluating cases when competitiveness and equality in tenders are affected. The open contracting standard promotes competitiveness and contributes to deterring corruption.