site.btaInterior Ministry Announces Set of Measures to Counteract Corruption

Interior Ministry Announces Set of Measures to Counteract Corruption

Sofia, September 29 (BTA) - The Interior Ministry Tuesday
announced a series of measures intended to counteract and limit
corruption in the Ministry. The measures were set out at a news
conference by Deputy Interior Minister Filip Gounev.

The proposed measures include conducting "automatic electronic"
checks of the financial interest declarations of the Interior
Ministry staff. At the moment, all 47,000 employees in the
Ministry submit such declarations but they are checked only
after an alert. In Gounev's work, the intention now is to have
"an effective analysis and checks of the employees'
declarations".

Another measure introduces integrity tests which will check
employees' reaction when offered kickbacks. Internal rules for
the tests have been developed in the course of two months now
and, following pilot tests to remove possible hitches, the first
 to undergo the tests will be the staff of the Traffic Police
and the Security Police.

Yet another measure is to make the rotation of police officers a
 permanent mechanism. Still another is to introduce a system of
examination, or the so-called lie detector, to be used more
effective and on a permanent basis. Gounev said, however, that
this would require new recruitments, for which there is no
money.

Also, structural reforms are planned to limit the opportunities
for corruption. Work in this respect will be in active
cooperation with the Customs Agency and the National Revenue
Agency, and a system of work will be created to automate
processes and thus eliminate corrupt practices.

Gounev said also that EU funding for counteracting cybercrime
has been provided which will go towards the development of a
system for information security in the Interior Ministry
intended to eliminate the opportunity for "trading in
information".