Nikolay Vassilev: E-government Will Reduce Corruption

In order to tackle corruption in the Bulgarian state administration an e-government should be introduced quickly and successfully, Public Administration and Administrative Reform Minister Nikolay Vassilev said.

During the Annual General  Meeting of the Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum (BBLF), Vassilev outlined three key steps that have to be undertaken for the e-government to launch in the country. First of all there should be enough computers, especially for smaller municipalities away from the capital, he said. Step two would be to gather enough people in the administration and business who use electronic signatures. Then all that was left was the creation of software solutions for the e-government.

BBLF Chairman Maxim Behar added that three myths existed in Bulgaria, the first one being that it was a very corrupt country. This is not true because corruption here is no higher than in any other country, he said. The second myth was that the corruption that exists would be quite hard to overpower, but this was also wrong for when business and government united against corrupt practices, then corruption wouldn't stand a chance. "The third myth is that getting rid of corruption would take a lot of time," Behar said. "This could be done quick - as long as business and government ensure the transparency in their actions, a practice that the BBLF has long accepted its daily work."

Vassilev received from Behar the BBLF pin, a sign of Bulgarian business' full support to the minister in his endeavor. Vassilev's ministry is already setting the grounds for a law regulating the e-government. The main principle of this law would be that once citizens or business companies have already reported something to the state administration, no other state authority would have the right to ask for this info again, Vassilev explained.

 

The participants at the BBLF Annual General Meeting unanimously approved the Activity report for 2005, the 2005 financial statement, auditor's and controller's reports.