The Autonomous Community of Aragon, Spain, continues to be a pioneer in the creation and implementation of solutions based on blockchain technology, in favor of the transparency and efficiency of its internal processes.
In its desire to remain a pioneering Spanish Autonomous Community in blockchain, the government of Aragon implemented a platform based on this technology for the bidding of contracts and public works in a transparent, reliable and secure way, which in turn allows the reduction of the costs and execution time of each process.
This blockchain platform allows the registration, visualization and evaluation in real time of all projects and proposals presented by economic operators and small and medium-sized businesses for the improvement and benefit of the community. Although this solution has been working since 2017, the Government of Aragon decided to implement a new solution that eliminates the figure of the Administration of the Autonomous Community of Aragon for smart contracts (smart contracts) that will be responsible for the allocation of public contracts, according to a local media report.
The purpose of the new initiative is to fully guarantee transparency, reliability, traceability and integrity in the assignment of public contracts to bidding companies and economic operators in each contracting process.
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Blockchain technology in Public Administration
Although the implementation of technology blockchain It grows more and more, and new use cases emerge every day, most of these are developed by and for private sector companies. Even so, several sectors of the Public Administration have begun to turn their gaze towards the implementation of this technology, thanks to its incredible potential to create feasible solutions to various problems that are present within the public sector.
The blockchain platform implemented by the Autonomous Community of Aragon has the purpose of promoting the attendance and interest of all those who want to participate and access the community's public contracts in a transparent way, but above all it is focused on attracting small and medium-sized companies that want to be part of these processes, giving them the opportunity to become visible through a transparent and reliable process. To achieve this, the Government of Aragon makes full use of blockchain technology, eliminating the need for Administration officials in the valuation process for the allocation of public contracts among bidders. Now this process will be executed entirely through smart contracts.
The European Commission sees this initiative of the Aragonese government as an exemplary innovation in the European Public Administration, which seeks to combat the serious problem of corruption that exists in these processes of awarding public contracts. This initiative led the Government of Aragon to be awarded by the 10th National Congress of Innovation and Public Services (CNIS) held in Madrid, Spain.
First smart contract in the Aragon blockchain system
The first smart contract implemented by the Aragon blockchain system will be used to decide which bidding company will be in charge of supplying 35.000 reusable masks for all the staff of the Administration of the Autonomous Community of Aragon, replacing the evaluations made by the staff of the Board of Community Contracting.
Although this is the first smart contract that the Administration of the Autonomous Community of Aragon will implement, through the blockchain platform they have already presented 24 bidding processes previously, in which the staff of the Contracting Board was in charge of assigning contracts to each bidder. Now, the implementation of smart contracts will replace the need for assessment by this personnel, since it will be previously programmed to formulate a criterion for assignment and award of the contract.
Need to implement blockchain technology within the Public Administration
First of all, in a release on the modernization of Public Administration issued by the European Commission to the European Parliament describes that:
“End-to-end electronic public procurement is not about implementing a computer project that is a simple replica of bureaucratic processes; It is an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the way public administration is organized. “End-to-end electronic public procurement is, therefore, a key factor in making the aforementioned priorities [competitiveness, digitalization, efficiency] achievable and can contribute to the achievement of the sustainable growth objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy.”
For his part, Miguel Ángel Bernal, former General Director of Contracting of the Government of Aragon, pointed out that blockchain technology and its multiple implementations allow added value to the actions of the Public Administration, in terms of transparency and efficiency. At the same time, Bernal pointed out that through this technology it is possible to verify in real time whether the contracting companies met the deadlines for submitting their proposals; Afterwards, the smart contract algorithm will make an assessment in this regard and award the public contract to a specific company, without anyone being able to alter the process or the assessment of the offers.
With this new technology it is possible to speed up the awarding of projects, lower costs and reduce public procurement deadlines.
Other use cases for blockchain technology within the Public Administration
In addition to implementing blockchain in the bidding, evaluation and contracting processes of offers, works and public projects, this technology can also be applied in many other areas, such as the accreditation of personality and solvency conditions, in the control of the execution of projects, such as order books, supplies, among others.
Likewise, outside the scope of contracting, blockchain technology has many applications, ranging from the management of grants and assignments, as well as the registration and management of a sovereign identity that is compatible with other fields, to significantly simplify and streamline processes, procedures, records, among others, always guaranteeing total data protection.
As we see, blockchain technology has multiple use cases and implementation that can solve several problems present in the management of current Public Administration, such as security, speed, transparency, costs, immutability, digital identity and decentralization. .
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