site.btaOpen-source SIGMA Platform Brings Real-time Transparency to Bulgaria's Public Procurement Spending

The scope of the Integrated Citizen Monitoring and Analysis System (SIGMA) covers the period from 2020 to 2026 and includes 193,000 contracts and procurement lots, with a total contract value exceeding EUR 51 billion, Minister of Innovation and Digital Transformation Ivan Vasilev announced on Tuesday at the presentation of SIGMA, a new public tool designed to increase transparency in public procurement. Prime Minister Rumen Radev also attended the launch event at the Council of Ministers.

SIGMA provides real-time visibility into how and where public funds are being spent, Vasilev explained. Users can search by institution and review the procurement activities of every government body and municipality over the past six years, including the procedures they have conducted, the contractors they have selected, whether contracts were awarded through open tenders or direct negotiations, and whether multiple bidders participated or only a single bidder was involved.

The system also allows users to examine every company that has worked with the government during the same period, including the contracts it has secured, the institutions and municipalities from which it has received funding, the procurement procedures involved, and whether those procedures were competitive or not, Vasilev added.

The platform is fully open-access and open-source. It is freely available to citizens as well as IT professionals, who can inspect the source code, understand how the system works, and contribute improvements and new features.

"There is also an option to export data in convenient formats for further analysis. I encourage media organizations, citizens, and non-governmental organizations to explore SIGMA, extract the data that interests them, make comparisons, and conduct additional analyses," he said, adding that ideas from developers and companies on how to further enhance SIGMA are welcome.

The system was developed in less than a month, without any additional budget, entirely within the ministry. Through SIGMA, the government hopes to strengthen public trust in Bulgarian institutions and make analysis and accountability regarding public spending more accessible, Vasilev said.

This is the first version of the platform. Version 2 will introduce integration with the Commercial Register, enabling checks for related parties as well as analysis and visualization of internal administrative expenditures. Version 3 will focus on oversight of the procurement process itself.

"Over the years, there have been numerous cases, as the Prime Minister also noted, where procurement procedures were designed to favour specific participants or restrict competition. That is coming to an end," Vasilev stated.

In Version 4, technology will help identify procurement procedures where submitted bids significantly exceed market prices, highlighting potential issues and cases where the state could suffer financial losses by awarding contracts to certain bidders. The focus of this version will be oversight of companies participating in tender procedures.

Vasilev explained that Version 5 remains intentionally open-ended because, like any living product, the SIGMA system will require continuous enhancement and development in the years ahead.