The National Integrity Agency (ANI, www.integritate.eu.) is generally regarded as Romania's main means of fulfilling the country's promise to the EU to come clean on corruption. A problem that has bedeviled Romania since the fall of communism in 1989, and undermined the credibility of state and public institutions.
For example, one objective of ANI is to control the income of those in power and to investigate the origin of their wealth. And here ANI’s officers allow no exception, which has won praise from the European Commission.
A very recent initiative which just went live is the PREVENT project. PREVENT is a well-chosen name, because the aim of the initiative is indeed to prevent corruption.The overall goal was to develop a new system for an ex-ante identification of a conflict of interests before a public procurement contract is awarded.
For example, there is a conflict of interest if a person in a public position is somehow related to a contractor. As in many countries, public tenders are prone for corruption due to the habit to award public contracts to companies owned by family members of local civil servants.
How does the new forward thinking system work to prevent corruption?
With the help of SAP HANA and SAP Investigative Case Management the system automatically detects whether participants in the public bid are relatives or are otherwise connected to the management of the contractor. The system predicts the likelihood of a potential corruption through a risk rating of each tender. If an red flag is issued by ANI’s inspectors, the head of the contracting authority will be informed about the potential conflict of interest through an integrity warning.
The system will without doubt raise the accountability of involved decision-makers in a public bid.
But please read yourself in the following very informative presentation by Silviu Popa, the Communication and Strategy Director of the National Integrity Agency(ANI).
I would like to sincerely thank Mr Siviu Popa for sharing his presentation with us.
Klaus Wigand
Global Solution Manager for SAP Public Security
Industry Business Solutions
SAP SE