New platform allows Romanians to see how public institutions spend their money

The 13,700 public institutions in Romania will have to upload information about their revenues and expenses on a new platform launched by the Ministry of Finance. “Increasing the transparency and efficiency of public money spending are the Finance Ministry's priority objectives. By launching this platform, we get both budgetary transparency and efficiency by improving the budgetary resource management and by introducing verification tools and a complete budgetary control,” Finance Minister Anca Dragu (picture, right) said at the launching of the Budgetary Transparency project, reports local Mediafax. The project's second phase, which will be launched in about two months, will allow Romanians to find out the public institutions’ number and structure, aggregate reports, budget, accounting reports, and other information, Minister Dragu added. “Any citizen, any company, any taxpayer can now see how the funds are distributed and how central and local public institutions spend these funds. And this transparency also allows the transmission of information related to the efficiency of public spending, but should also allow the removal of risks of fraud or corruption because of higher transparency on how the money is spent and how much the investments cost,” Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said. In about four months, the project should also be expanded to include state companies. Romania needs to attribute more public contracts electronically Project in Romania: Public procurement to be conducted entirely online Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com