The new anti-fraud Programme Hercule III of the European Commission has financed the project StAFF Pro: Strengthening Actions to Fight Frauds in Procurement that AVEPA applied as a  exchanging experience and best practices between relevant authorities in the participating countries; disseminating knowledge, particularly on better identification of risks for investigative purposes.

Participants in StAFF Pro Project

The project where Agenzia Veneta per i Pagamenti in Agricoltura -AVEPA is Project Leader, will involve foreign partners such as the Paying Agencies of :

• Austria: Agramarkt Austria -AMA
• Lituania: Nacionaline Mokejimo Agentura prie Zemes ukio ministerijos -NMA
• Estonia: Põllumajanduse Registrite ja Informatsiooni Amet (Agricultural Registers and Information- PRIA

Objectives of the StAFF PRO Project

StAFF Pro contributes to capacity building towards the fight against fraud, corruption and other illegal of irregular activities related to rural development expenditures operated by means of both private and public procurement.  The added value consists in:

• improved awareness of Pa's (paying agencies) staff and solutions related to the implementation of rural development projects through public and private procurement;
• building upon the idea of "safe financial management" as "value for the money";
• sharing demonstrably effective and efficient practices for their possible integration into the project partners' control systems.

StAFF Pro promotes a series of staff exchange initiatives, the final objective of which is to get to know and generalise participants' experiences, their best practices, and operational tools so that they can possibly be implemented also into other PAs' (paying agencies) control systems. Each participating PA's - Italian AVEPA, Austrian AMA, Estonian ARIB, and Lithuanian NPA - shall build groups of 5 members of its staff. Each participating institution hosts the other delegations in turn. Main topics include:

• Internal and external risks in private and public procurement;
• Preventive approach to procurement internal and external risks;
• Enacting public procurement principles to the private procurement legislation in case of (EU) public financing;
• Anti-corruption strategies;
• Public procurement audit;
• Anti-fraud audit;
• Segmentation of applicants/beneficiaries  into "green" and "red" corridors (multi-speed proceedings of applications); h) E-procurement and transparency;
• Project and contract monitoring;
• Case studies.

The deliverable of project is a common orientation document specifically tailored to the needs of PAs. The document shall describe a generalised and readily implementable versions of the best practices adopted by the project partners thus allowing their possible introduction into the management and control systems of other PAs.

SCHEDULE StAFF Pro Project

June 26- 27 2018: staff exchange AVEPA, AMA, PRIA in NMA -Vilnius- LITHUANIA
Topic: Fraud and irregolarities in public procurement, red flags and best practice in Lithuania

September 18-19 2018: staff exchange AVEPA, AMA, NMA in PRIA- Tartu - ESTONIA
Topic: Fraud and irregularities in public procurement, red flags and best practice

November 13-14 2018: staff exchange AVEPA, NMA, PRIA in AMA -Wien-  AUSTRIA
Topic: Fraud prevention in theory and pratical use

February 5-6-7 2019: staff exchange NMA, AMA, PRIA in AVEPA -Padova - ITALY
Topic: The management of private and public procurement risks in AVEPA

For further informations about this project please contact:

Denise D'Ambros
tel. +39 049 7708706
formazione@avepa.it

This event is supported by the European Union Programme Hercule III (2014-2020). This programme is implemented by the European Commission. It was established to promote activities in the field of the protection of the financial interests of the European Union.

For more information see:
ec.europa.eu/anti_fraud/about-us/funding/index_en.htm

This communication reflects the view only of the author, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of information contained therein.