The Albanian Development Fund (ADF) is one of the most important public institutions. Its projects are covered by the State Budget and credits from important international institutions. The monitoring of ADF’s procurement of public works is particularly important given the high value and impact they are expected to have on the public sector. AIS has developed a database containing a passaport for each procurement in accordance with the OpenContracting standard. Anyone may search for data concerning tenders, fund limits, winning offers, winning operators, disqualified operators, and contract terms and deadlines. The data may be filtered enabling an analysis by the location of investments, nationality of contractors, type of tender procedure, type of project, and level of competitiveness. The data will be updated on daily basis, enabling taxpayers to monitor contracts signed for public money and goods.

Monitor Municipalities’ Clients – One of AIS projects on Municipality Transparency. The main output of the project is the Open Corporates Albania database. This database contains economic data concerning business companies that have won tenders and contracts with the municipalities. The database introduces the Municipality’s Private Contractors, identifies their owners and administrators, and describes their economic performance and activity. After winning a tender with the municipalities, these economic entities provide public services or works. The public may thus learn who stands behind the companies contracted by the Local Government Units. For each business company, a passport using OpenCorporate standards is created for each tender conducted by all the municipalities from 2015 and ongoing.

From July 2015, since the creation of the 61 municipalities emerging from the latest territorial and administrative division, until July 2018, municipalities have signed more than 18 thousand contracts buying goods, services, public works, and organizing auctions or Public Private Partnerships (concesionary contracts). A passport is created in the Open Procurement Albania database for each tender accessible to the public in the OpenContracting format. In addition, the database provides well-structured information enabling search for procurement by the procuring authority, winning competitor, type of contract, date of tender announcement, etc. The system includes also an algorithm, where each contract is automatically scanned on the basis of some criteria, and marked by RedFlag when applicable. The redflag algorithm has led to 10% of the total number of municipalities’ tenders marked by red flags, identifying thus the risk of lack of competition, inequality, favoritism, and economic abuse. The database is used in dozens of investigative articles in the Albanian media.

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.

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.