On July 3, 2006, Monday the official opening and demonstration took place at the Municipal Customer Service Centre in Sandanski. It concedes the largest project at the moment in the field of the electronic government in Bulgaria "Complex administrative services in the e- Region Blagoevgrad". This project was initiated and implemented by the Foundation for Local Government Reform with the financial support from United States Agency for International Development. It represents a concept extension of the 2005 FLGR's initiative for the introduction of integrated administrative services on local level in Teteven and Gabrovo.

The opening was attended by Members of Parliament from the region, Gene Gibson a.i. Director of the USAID mission in Bulgaria, Maria Divizieva - Deputy Minister of the state administration and the administrative reform, Ginka Kapitanova - Executive Director of the Foundation for Local Government Reform (FLGR), Vladimir Dimitrov - Regional Governor of Blagoevgrad and partners in project.

The project introduces a mechanism for document exchange between administrations and institutions on the basis of the contemporary information technologies in favour of citizens and business. It builds on the whole experience in the field of the electronic government in Bulgaria till the present moment and impresses with its dimensions:

1. Partners in the project implementation are all the 14 municipalities in Blagoevgrad region, Regional administration Blagoevgrad and six regionally represented state institutions and agencies (Regional court jointly with the Information Service Ltd.; Regional Office of the National Directorate for Control in Construction; Regional Inspectorate for Prevention and Control of the Health; Territorial Directorate of the National Inco me Agency; Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water; Blagoevgrad Police Department);

2. 17 complex administrative services;
   
   
3. The partnering state agencies outsource for application in the municipalities 26 of their administrative services;
   
   
4. The document exchange will be performed on technologically new principle, which grants the document security and their authenticity.
   
   

Additional project outcomes: Unification of administrative service procedures in the municipalities from the region; Speeding up the document exchange and the process of services accomplishment; Reduction of mail expenses for the document exchange between the institutions (district, municipality, regional departments); Reducing the number of the contacts between citizens and administrations, and therefore reducing the possibilities for corruption practices.

Vassilka Sirachevska, project coordinator, FLGR, demonstrated the possibilities, given by the new infrastructure, at the opening.

Contact:

Vassilka Sirachevska

[email protected] 

+359 2 976 89 39