site.btaE-Government Minister Publishes Data on All Payments Made by State

On the initiative of Bulgarian e-Government Minister Bozhidar Bozhanov, the Council of Ministers has adopted a decision instructing the Finance Minister and the e-Government Minister to publish the individual transactions from the System for Electronic Budget Payments (SEBRA).

As of this week, the data has already been uploaded to the Open Data Portal and includes every single payment over BGN 5,000 for all expenditures except for wages and social security contributions.

This information offers a vast opportunity for citizen control over the activities of the State. It gives a clear idea of which companies receive the financial resources and whether there is a discrepancy between the value of the contracts as concluded and the payments made under them. Until now, payments from SEBRA were uploaded only in a summarized form, providing information on how much the institutions spend each day. From now on each transaction will have to appear on the Open Data Portal within a month after it has been made.

This step ensures unprecedented transparency, which is a strong anti-corruption measure. The e-Government Ministry is working on delivering full accountability of the actions carried out by the State. The open data keep the public informed and moreover provide a basis for making new policies and initiating legislation in the future which are a tool for countering corrupt practices.