BRATISLAVA, March 28, (WEBNOVINY) — From now on, everyone interested can check on the Internet who is behind the companies successful in profiteering on public procurement. The political fairness watchdog the Fair-Play Alliance has launched and introduced a project ZnasichDani.sk on Monday, which should disclose people behind companies winning public procurements with help of a few clicks. “All a person needs to do is to enter the name of a businessman, which the website will automatically associate with friendly companies and show how much they earned on procurements,” said alliance’s program director Zuzana Wienk.
Wienk says that the portal represents a turning point in access to information on well-known people successful in obtaining public money. “I hope that this will save time to investigative journalists and politicians will get a little bit frighten by the public opinion. Specific persons and their business culture are behind every company. Above-standard relations between businessmen and politicians are often discussed and ZnasichDani.sk turns speculations and fairy tales into barenaked facts,” says Wienk.
By entering a specific name on the website, it is possible to learn how well a company where a person bearing this name is engaged in some way has been doing. Data on public procurements are available for 2005 to 2011. The website collects information from portals of the Commercial Register, e-Commercial Bulletin and some data is obtained from another project of the alliance, datanest.sk, which traces financial flows from the public sector to the private hands. The new website also enables to monitor successfulness of people in specific years, map the companies, which profited most in public procurement and their relation with other companies and persons. It is thus possible to monitor changes in relations and affiliations of individual companies and persons over a certain period of time.
Wienk finds launching the website to be another huge step forward, which will provide journalists and all people who are interested in public procurement, easier access to information. “Ten years ago, detecting companies where businessmen are involved required special investigation,” said Wienk to point out the progress over the past years. She illustrated practicality of the website on the case of businessman Juraj Siroky, whose companies have managed to obtain orders for almost EUR 170 million ex-VAT since 2005. The service showed that Siroky’s companies have been the most successful in parliament, M.H. Invest (a company of the Economy Ministry) and in the Faculty Hospital with Policlinic in Zilina.
SITA