THE OPAC MONITORING COMMITTEE HAS APPROVED THREE NEW PROCEDURES FOR 2013
06.11.2013
\"Bulgaria has what to be proud of in the first for the country programming period. The management and control systems at the moment enjoy the European Commission high confidence, and at this stage the risk of losing funds is in the hands of the beneficiaries and depends on how well and successfully they are implementing their projects. The OPAC Managing Authority on its part has done everything possible in respect of the control over project implementation.\" With these words Mina Shoylekova from the European Commission addressed the participants in the 13th meeting of the Monitoring Committee of Operational Programme Administrative Capacity (OPAC). She emphasized that now the team of the Programme was facing the not easy task to complete the current and to prepare the new programming period, the priority again being the e-governance which was also the main priority of the 2020 Strategy. The EC considered as positive the results achieved and the reforms made in many public structures. She shared that according to an EC analysis crucial for the administrative reform was the work on changing the administrative culture.
The Head of OPAC Monika Dimitrova-Beecher reported on the progress of the Programme in 2013. She was adamant that the lesson learned from experience so far was that clear and realistic objectives should be set. According to her in spite of the successes there is room for improvement in respect of procedure simplification and facilitation of beneficiaries in order to minimize the risks of losing funds. She reported that the main problem remained public procurement and called for synchronization of the actions and the communication between all units responsible (control bodies, managing authorities and beneficiaries). \"Over-control will not encourage our beneficiaries to be more active and therefore we are open for good ideas in this respect\", the Head of OPAC said.
The OPAC Monitoring Committee made a decision to open three more procedures for grants by the end of 2013. Two procedures under OPAC sub-priority 2.2 - for IPA - with budget of BGN 4 million, and for municipal employees training for BGN 4 million. The revenue administrations will be the beneficiaries of the third procedure under sub-priority 3.1 with budget BGN 7 million.
The total number of procedures opened in 2013 is 14, amounting to more than BGN 76.6 million. The number of project proposals received thereunder is 431. Among the difficulties identified in the OPAC implementation is for instance the lack of requests for reimbursement by beneficiaries, the reason therefor being the delay in the contracting in 2010.
As of 31.10.2013 the beneficiaries approved under OPAC are more than 500. That became clear at the meeting. In 2013 only, 364 contracts were concluded, amounting to BGN 73 million in total. New 242 contracts are to be concluded; thus the number of contracts made in 2013 exceeds the number of contracts concluded in the period 2009-2012. As of the moment 91% of the Programme budget funds are contracted, 53% - paid and 44% - certified. For the whole programming period the largest amounts paid to beneficiaries are in 2013 - BGN 52 million; the same applies to the expenditures verified (BGN 47.57 million) and the expenditures certified before the EC (BGN 53.14 million in total).
The meeting also discussed: a concept for IPA development, the implementation of recommendations from audits under OPAC and the progress in the programming of Operational Programme Good Governance 2014 - 2020.