Dear Sir or Madam.
I have received an opinion on the commitment of SPIRIT Slovenia to the de-bureaucratisation of the awarding of grants from the state tenders for aid to companies under the anti-corruption measures.
My proposal relates to the lengthy bureaucratic procedure for obtaining grant financial incentives/assistance from the State calls for tenders 71SUB-SO19 through the ECO Fund for self-supply installations for electricity from solar power plants (Official Journal of the Republic of Slovenia, No 36/19,31/20,134/20, 51/21 and 100/21). The procedures for granting grant financial incentives from the ECO Fund for the replacement of other existing heating installations with a carbon footprint (coal, oil, wood) with ambient heat (water-to-air, water-to-water) or solar energy via solar panels are also identical in content. The applicant for a financial incentive for a solar power plant must meet the following requirements:
1. information on the applicant, his bank account, the building with a self-supplied solar power plant, the rated capacity of the solar power plant, the method of financial incentive by credit or partial repayment of the invoice
Annexes: a contractor's quotation, information on the rated capacity of the installation, information on financial incentives already received, a photograph of the building with the location of the installation marked, the consent for the connection of the installation to the national electricity grid. The following are essential when applying for a financial incentive from the national call for tenders:
- the applicant must first obtain the consent of Elektro gospodarstva and SODO d.o.o. for the connection of the solar power plant to the electricity grid for the investment on its own premises and, after the completion of its own investment, the certificate of connection of the installation to the grid.
- a bank receipt for payment of the invoice to the contracting company for the purchase and installation of the installation on the building. These two essential pieces of information for the investment by the applicant are available to the State granting the financial incentive officially through the information network at the Electricity Company and SODO Ltd. and at the bank of the contractor's invoice. The personal data and the information on the installation site referred to in point 1. shall be filled in by the applicant via the electronic application and shall be electronically verifiable by the granting authority from the national databases (civil registry, land registry, information on financial incentives already received from the EKO Fund).
The current procedures for obtaining financial incentives are multi-stage with a lengthy procedure time: at least 90 days for the first stage application to be processed by the ECOFIN clerks, at least 90 days for the ECOFIN clerks to review the required documents, at least 90 days for the final approval and the transfer of the financial incentive to the applicant's personal transaction account. Any error, however minor, will prolong the process for at least another 90 days.
My intention in proposing to automate the procedure for obtaining a financial incentive for investing in 'green' energy supply installations instead of carbon-based installations, which have a drastic impact on our environment, is based on my personal experience of applying to the ECO Fund. My application for a financial incentive was rejected by the ECO Fund because I had delivered the application with all the documents, including the bank receipt for the bill for the installation and installation, to the ECO Fund in a single consignment, rather than in two steps: firstly, the application with the certificate from the Electricity Company, and secondly, in the final stage, the bank receipt for the bill. With my application method, I wanted to speed up the whole process both for the ECOFund and for myself by accessing the financial incentive more quickly. The Administrative Court of the Republic of Slovenia also rejected my appeal against the decision on my application to the EKF. I learned that the procedures for obtaining financial assistance from state funds can be fully automated to a large extent and that funds can be obtained in minutes from a company that had developed such a procedure for the PPP with a computer programme that would also be adaptable to the EcoFund calls for tenders. I am personally ready to help with advice on such a procedure.