NAŠI POLITICI O.S. – new media watchdog

Jiří Fiala – Naši politici o.s.

Prague

February 2014

The economist: Czech politics- State

capture...

NEW MEDIA - WATCHDOG NGO

2008 NASIPOLITICI.CZ

Our missions and objectives…

„The aim of the civic association, Naši politici o. s., is to create an independent

source of information to provide public with relevant undistorted information on

public administration - state and local governments.“In this regard, we focus on:

1. persons who hold an elected mandate / function and / or have a major impact on

the formation and execution of public administration in the Czech Republic. The basic

objective is to be achieved through the establishment and operation of an internet portal

www.nasipolitici.cz.

2. analytical work on exploring the links between politicians, lobbyists and financial

flows within public institutions - exploring potentially non-standard processes within

public procurements and subsidies from the EU funds and other issues related to the

transparency of the public administration.

3. Usage of the informational potential of publicly available data to create an open data

network aggregating those available data into a new information quality. Use of

data and analytical outputs, in cooperation with partner watchdog organizations and

investigative journalists for self-analytical, investigative and advocacy work. In this

respect our association operates internet portals www.budovanistatu.cz and

www.fondyeu.eu.

STRUCTURED PROFILES OF POLITICIANS AND

LOBBYISTS

Virtual election 2010 – preferential voting

Presidential election 2013 – networking of NGO‘s

Google Add Words – PPC promotion granted

EU Structural Funds – 48 billion EUR for the

Czech Republic (2007 – 2020)

Where is the mistake?

1. Risk Analysis 2006 - poorly implemented ...

2. The strong influence of politicians on administration of Operational Programs

3. Dysfunctional control from Leading Authorities/Audit Authorities

4. Methodological inconsistency of Operational Programs

5. Significant administrative burden vs. low effectiveness / usefulness

6. Missing authority that would interpret the correct procedure (The Office for the

Protection of Competition x The European Court of Auditors x Ministry of Finance x

Tax Offices)

7. Lack of transparency and open sources of information

8. 1 billion EUR reported to European Anti-Fraud Office probable corrections

The Reconstruction of the

Bustehrad castle should have cost

181 million CZK - about 20 million

CZK should have been allocated

for bribes.

From the CZ Police Interception: „I will tell Lucie that this subject will

win the tender and others will be a facade. Give me the project, I will

adjust the tender.“ (K.Pancová)

„The Council composed of regional politicians did not provide for single project financed by one of the priority axes of Regional Operational Programm - Central Bohemia a real control over the project. The fact that the Regional Council - Central Bohemia yet hasn’t done these checks causes a risk that the term of sustainability will elapse without the accomplishment.“ (The official statement, The National Audit Office, 2012)

Solution - reduce risk and increase efficiency 2014 - 2020

„The goal is not a perfection, but a change for

the better “ (TI - M. Fantová 2007)

Effective control and repression

Legislation changes (The Reconstruction of the

State Project)

Prevention

• Simplifying the distribution structure

• Greater methodological unity

• Effective management of corruption risks

• Transparency and open information - "open

data"

By connecting various public information sources can

be created a new information quality

• A List of Operational Programm Beneficiaries

– Ministry of Regional Development.

• A Procurement Database Vsechnyzakazky.cz.

• Visualization of the economic relations – data

from the Czech Business Register

Podnikani.cz.

• Structured profiles of politicians and

Lobbyists - Nasipolitici.cz.

• Czech Statistical Office

• Commercial database CreditCheck

„Hard data“ – essential basis for analytical work

Information documents from different public

sources serve as basic data for the analysis

and investigation

Fondyeu.eu

Fondyeu.eu - a project summary

The main objective of the Fondyeu.eu project is to increase the

transparency of information on the beneficiaries and the projects that

received financial support from the EU Structural Funds.

The project allows easy searching and linking of detailed information

relating to the individual recipients of grants from the EU, with the

associated procurement, visualized economic and personal relationships

and connections with persons involved in the political sphere.

With the Internet application www.fondyeu.eu you can, for the first time,

simply search for connections between the beneficiaries of subsidies,

public procurements and politicians identified in connection with the grant

recipient.

Fondyeu.eu – an information on grant recipient

Fondyeu.eu –10 largest subsidies for

accommodation entities

Controversial Practice Examples

- anonymous shares / offshore

1) President Securities a.s.– anonymous shares,

controlled by ODS regional election manager, it is

not clear who actually carries out the project.

Director of Regional Operational Project

Northwest P. Markvart – Chomutov mayor

candidate (ODS)

2) Armaturka Krnov, a.s. – 6 grants from EU with the

total allocated amount of 66 million CZK, business

relations with State Owned Enterprises, Cyprus

offshore owner – until July 2013 was involved

minister František Koníček (Ministry of Labour and

Social Affairs)

Fondyeu.eu – future development of the application

Fondyeu.eu - Publicly beneficial applications of the year 2013

1. Awarded as the best Public Servise

Application of the year 2013 in the Czech

Republic.

2. "The application compared to the official

website of the Ministry for Regional

Development (MMR) is not only more friendly,

but also informationally richer. Linking MMR

data from the Czech Statistical Office and Nasi

politici project database is creating an elegant

webs of grant recipients’ relationships with

other entities and clearly shows the Who,

Where and With Whom.“

Jiří Táborský (Czechposition.cz, 30.11.2013)

Politicians and public expenditures – investments into our future is

necessary to watch ...

„we will build a great things together“

Projects are supported…

Thank you

Jiří Fiala

fiala@nasipolitici.cz