17-18 February, Budapest – International Public Procurement Conference was held in the organization of OLAF, Hercule II and Transparency International Programme on the following topic: “Safeguarding EU funds against fraud and corruption through the civil control mechanism of Integrity Pacts“.

Participants to the International conference were the PPA representatives: Mrs Farisa Kardović, Independent Advisor I, and Mrs Bojana Ačković, Senior Advisor III.

In the course of the two-day conference, views and experience regarding the issues of corruption and the fraud were expressed according to the assessment of the following international experts: Jean-Francois Paroz, Ana Gomez, Hans Stander, Susanne Kuhn, Inese Voika etc.

This conference represents the most prominent point of the whole project and it is focused on the research of Integrity Pacts and its publishing, as an efficient manner of the public procurement cleaning. The objective is the introduction of the Integrity Pact as an innovative idea and methodology in order to prevent corruption in public procurement that affects the EU financial interests and also the businesses of the countries beneficiaries to the EU funds.

Establishing of the national and the international fora in purpose of exchanging of the experience, information and the best practice among the citizens in the monitoring of the public procurement financed by the EU. Furthermore, developing of the mutual connections in order to ensure the efficient use of the Integrity Pact to the interested persons and participants in the individual cases that includes EU funds.

Integrity Pact (IP) is a tool developed by the “Transparency International“(TI) Programme
which ensures the clean bids in the Public Procurement procedures for the companies and undertakings in possession of the state and of the public sector. It consists of the procedure that encompasses the agreement between the contracting authority and all the bidders with the aim of signing of the contract in the public sector. Lacking the transparency in public procurement procedures results in severe loss of the trust and fair competition in businesses. By the abovementioned reason of the significance of the transparency in public procurement field the growing number of corporations and state administration bodies perceive the increasing tendency of trust in the Public Institutions as well as of the competition in the business sector.