The action plan with regards to the suspended measures under SAPARD must be ready until 10 July

The Action Plan with regards to SAPARD measures suspended by the European Commission will be ready until 10 July, the government press service announced.

A working group, headed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, is in charge of its drawing up and SAPARD Agency must launch its immediate implementation. This is written in the Progress Report on EU funds absorption prepared by the Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Plugchieva, as well as in her Measure Implementation Report in respect of the Action Plan for launching corrective measures in the process of implementation of pre-accession programmes and Community structural instruments. The documents were discussed at the working meeting of the Council of Ministers.

The government decided that the Minister of Finance should urgently assign to KPMG the task to conduct an additional audit of the Republican Road Infrastructure Fund (RRIF). The audit will be in 2 directions - verification of transactions and conflict of interests of PHARE and ISPA projects currently run by the Fund, as well as audit of project activities and operations of PHARE Executive Agency with the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works under projects with the Fund as a beneficiary.
Audits of the Fund's activity and transactions during 2007 as on-budget entity and audit of the conflict of interests must be drawn up as well.

The auditors will also prepare an interim report on the 10 PHARE projects under financial suspension with RRIF as a beneficiary. The final audit report must be drawn up by 10 September.

The analysis of Meglena Plugchieva shows that, in order to overcome the complex situation with regards to EU programmes, the whole administration engaged in EU funds management and absorption must concentrate and coordinate its efforts.

The main problems in the process of operative programme implementation refer to the administrative capacity at the level of administrative structures - governing bodies and intermediate departments, as well as at the level of beneficiaries. It is necessary to simplify project implementation rules, enhance transparency and information disclosure in the process of their realization.

Plugchieva's report focuses on the remaining problems including the problem of municipal activities funding before the conclusion of contracts, as well as the problem of the overall finalization of projects by municipalities before they receive final funding thereof. It is also necessary to have positive assessment of the coherence between governance and control systems for the governing, certifying and auditing bodies.

During their working meeting the Ministers discussed also the report on strengthening administrative capacity of structures and departments in charge of EU funds management. Departments in charge of EU-funds are in need of additional personnel. In order to avoid increasing of the number of state employees, a proposal for carrying out internal restructuring of departmental system was made. Teams currently working under PHARE will be relocated to other operative programmes after its conclusion.

According to the working group, additional bonuses for employee stimulation should be granted once per year and should be allocated according to a differentiated approach.

The maximum amount of bonuses must not exceed the amount of the basic annual salary. Allocation of bonuses must be preceded by a decision of the Council of Ministers adopted on the basis of the Annual Progress Report on operative programmes submitted by the Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister shall give a monthly account of the training conducted in relevant departments.
In view of enhancing transparency and information disclosure the interdepartmental working group brought forward the following measures:

• notices of new procedures under operative programmes should be prominently displayed on the title page;
• clear and objective application rules written in comprehensive language should be drawn up and published;
• groups of potential beneficiaries under operative programmes should be published;
• with the purpose of maximum transparency and to facilitate beneficiaries, all necessary application documentation should be published with the launch of relevant procedures;
• deadlines for submission of project proposals should be prominently displayed on the title page;
• internal working rules for the assessment committees accompanied by all documentation related to their work should be published simultaneously with the announcement of relevant procedures (assessment tables, assessment methodology etc.);
• publication of simulation models of the steps in project preparation and implementation under relevant operative programmes, as well as comparative tables for administrative coherence which will enable beneficiaries to judge if their project proposals are duly prepared;
• publication of the separate stages of project proposal assessment;
• the most common mistakes in already submitted projects which will serve as a reference in the process of project proposal preparation should be published;
• publication of the work-schedule of the information days carried out in the country in respect of the open procedures under each operative programme for the purpose of informing all those concerned about the information campaign and the options for application under open procedures;
• general calendar of the information days run by all governing bodies should be published on WWW.EUFUNDS.BG Gateway;
• permanent English version including all news and basic documents should be maintained;
• contact information of administrative departments in charge of EU funds management should be prominently displayed on the website;
• progress reports on the implementation of operative programmes submitted to relevant institutions should be published;
• the membership and decisions adopted by the Supervising Committee under the relevant OP including the correspondence contacts of all members of the Committee should be published;
• indicative annual work-schedule under the OP for the current year must be prominently displayed on the website;
• in accordance with EC's transparency initiative a list of all beneficiaries, projects approved for financing and amount of granted funds should be available on the website of each OP;
• all current information should be submitted to the electronic gateway of the Ministry of Finance - WWW.EUFUNDS.BG;
• links to the other OPs should be available on the site of each OP and they should be registered with the Internet search site WWW.GOOGLE.COM.

Until 10 July the Internet pages of all administrative structures in charge of EU funds management should be made standard and uniform. They must contain information about the project preparation steps and simulation models as well.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Valeri Tsvetanov will give a press conference about the measures undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food in connection with the suspended measures under SAPARD on 4 July, 10.00 a.m. at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.