On September 12, a joint briefing of Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Kryklii and Program Manager of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) John Hawkins was dedicated to the transfer of the analytical module of the Transparent Infrastructure Portal to the Ministry of Infrastructure.

Transparent Infrastructure is an open data portal for infrastructure projects implemented at the expense of state funds. The current portal contains data on repair and construction of highways of national and local importance.

"The portal was developed by the CoST Ukraine initiative, which was the winner of last year's Open Data Challenge competition - the largest national competition of innovation based on open data", said Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov. "And we are happy that this project was been further developed and is integrated into the public administration".

Mykhailo Fedorov also reminded that the next Open Data Forum would be held within a week, September 20, and in its framework there would traditionally be an award ceremony of this year's Open Data Challenge winners. The Deputy Prime Minister called on everyone to create useful products based on open data and to participate in the following competitions.

At the end of July this year, an international CoST initiative with the financial support of the USAID/UK aids Transparency and Accountability in Government and Services/TAPAS project created an analytical module that allows for a few clicks to monitor tendering procedures in the area of construction, repair and reconstruction of public-access roads.

Through the collaboration of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the USAID/UK aids Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration and Services/TAPAS project, this module will be upgraded and complemented with the functions that allow the Ministry of Infrastructure, business representatives, journalists and the public to receive comprehensive information about the state of the road infrastructure or specific project, to conduct quality monitoring and control over the use of public funds.

Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Kryklii said of further work with the open data portal system: "We are planning to extend this system, which we will now introduce, to other infrastructure sectors in Ukraine and share this experience with other countries and partners. We will work to improve this system and introduce new web portal analytics modules that will be a useful tool for business. From this project and in the future we will prolong our activities on the digitization of processes in the transport industry. Digitize all of our registries, build effective paperless communication between the Ministry of Infrastructure, subordinate enterprises, institutions and central executive bodies."

What will change as a result of the transfer of the portal to the Ministry of Infrastructure

From now on, in addition to the tender data from ProZorro, the web portal will receive data from the Unified web portal of public funds use spending.gov.ua. This will allow monitoring of real project costs.

State administrations of all regions of Ukraine will disclose information on the portal. Currently, there is available data from only 6 out of 24.

A module is added that will allow anyone to easily get information about repairing roads of national and local importance.

The portal database will be supplemented with information on construction and repair of roads from the beginning of Prozorro operation in Ukravtodor (from 2016), which will allow having an even broader picture of the market participants.

John Hawkins, CoST Program Manager, thanked everyone for the cooperation: "Signing of the memorandum is proof that the current Government supports the implementation of Eurointegration laws. We welcome and support the launch of open data as part of the introduction of European integration bills in Ukraine".

Modernized Transparent Infrastructure web portal with advanced analytics module functions will be operational in six months. The updated tool will allow to see how purchases of road works are happening and to find out information about competitors. Through the portal, public activists will also have an opportunity to monitor the effectiveness of public funds in the process of implementation of infrastructure projects and to reveal the risks of corruption.

To sum up, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov noted that the process of opening data is critical for Ukraine. After all, our country wants to become a digital European country. He called on the Ministry of Infrastructure and all other government agencies to comply with CMU Resolution No. 835, which contains a list of mandatory datasets that is updated annually. Currently, under this Regulation, government agencies are required to open nearly 900 datasets.