For Besnik Krasniqi an investigative journalist for Koha Ditore, a major daily paper, accessing documents necessary to write on procurement contracts meant waiting for days if not months.  Without ready access to these public documents, he struggled to gather sufficient evidence to report on the linkages between public funds and private interests.

That all changed with the introduction of a new web-based Open Procurement Transparency Portal (www.prokurimihapur.org/en). The Portal, launched last July, created by a Kosovar civil society organization, Levizja FOL, with support from USAID, automatically pulls data from the Government of Kosovo’s electronic procurement platform and presents this data in a user-friendly interface allowing researchers, businesses, and investigators to monitor ongoing procurement tenders and the award of public contracts. The portal allows researchers to more easily detect patterns of behavior that may indicate corrupt or illegal activity in public procurement.

Now, Besnik and other journalists are able to use the Open Procurement Transparency Portal as their first step when researching an article. Public documents like procurement contracts now only take minutes of research and a few clicks of the mouse to acquire. He explains:

“Within a few minutes of working with the data on the portal, it is possible for a journalist to track cases related to politics vs. businesses and develop a very good article. In the past, this would have taken weeks or months to write. This portal has led to a revolution in procurement transparency.” In the first three months of its operation, more than 3,700 users have already explored the flow of public funds on the Open Procurement Transparency Portal.

The USAID Transparent, Effective and Accountable Municipalities activity supports the Government of Kosovo (GoK) to implement anti-corruption reforms and improve the transparency and accountability of the municipal procurement process in all Kosovo municipalities.