Infrastructure Ministry Publishes Information About Future Procurements Worth UAH 5 Billion By State Enterprises

The Ministry of Infrastructure presented a unified database of procurements by state enterprises controlled by the ministry on 24 December. This will make public procurement more transparent in 2016, the press service of the Ministry of Infrastructure said.

According to the press service, this is the first result of the new electronic document management system that the ministry introduced in early December.

"Representatives of businesses can already obtain information about 15 companies’ procurement plans involving more than UAH 5 billion. More information has now been added to the database and data from most enterprises will be added to it before the end of this year. The database will be available in the business section (procurement subsection) of the website of the Ministry of Infrastructure," the press service said.

The service is a widget that allows users to analyze the products and services that enterprises plan to purchase, the volume they plan to purchase, and the time they plan to make the purchase. With a few clicks, a potential supplier will be able to see exactly which enterprises need its products or services in specific months.

According to the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian, the data will also be available in machine-readable form via the website of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the government open data portal, data.gov.ua.

In the future, the Ministry of Infrastructure plans to enter the contact information of state enterprises and their account balances into the database, which will allow monitoring of the bank accounts in which money is held and the terms under which money is held in the bank accounts. Previously, enterprises were able to attribute their failure to pay suppliers for goods or services to lack of funds in their bank accounts, which created opportunities for corruption, the ministry said. In addition, the ministry plans to open access to information about lease of movable and immovable state property, which will allow estimation of rents and the dates of expiration of contracts.

In 2016, the majority of reports filed by enterprises will be converted into electronic form and made public. This is aimed at increasing transparency and establishing additional public control, the press service said.