PUBLICATION of public-sector contracts on the internet will change as of the beginning of 2012 after President Ivan Gašparovič signed an amendment to the country's Freedom of Information Act, the TASR newswire reported.
The amendment, passed by parliament on October 19, will change the system used to publish contracts on the internet. As of January 2012 only companies that are wholly-owned by the state will be required to publish their contracts on the internet.
While the companies in question will not have to publish agreements which pertain to their day-to-day trading activities, they will have to publish contracts when they sell state-owned property or engage in trading activities outside their core business.
The Justice Ministry expects this to prevent state firms from taking an unfair advantage over private businesses.
The amendment will also allow the entities not to publish some parts of contracts, such as graphs, projections or models.
Parties to the contracts will also be exempted from publishing each order and invoice providing they display basic information about each transaction on their website and retain the original documents for at least five years.
State institutions trading in state bonds will not have to publish their contracts; nor will contracts signed between the State Treasury and banks have to go online, TASR wrote.
