Two information systems would be employed to monitor Bulgaria's spending of EU funds after wide-spread irregularities prompted Brussels to freeze payments of hundreds of millions of euro.

Lothar, the first monitoring scheme, is already in place, according to the Finance Ministry. It covers all Government agencies involved in the absorption of EU funding.

At the same time, the finance ministry has invited a tender for the development of another information system, to be called Isun, that will serve a similar purpose: management and oversight of structural instrument funding.

Experts from the finance ministry said that Isun would not track locally-funded projects like those handed out in pursuance of the Public Procurement Act.

Seven companies have submitted bids to develop the ISUN software. The contract will be contested by Stemo, Index Bulgaria, KPMG, Information Services, Technologica, Intracom IT Services and HP Bulgaria, a source from one of the competing outfits said.

The finance ministry refused to name the candidates. The offers were unsealed on July 7.

The ministry said the two systems will not overlap. The first one is not an information system proper but a spreadsheet solution that enables the forecasting of financial costs.

On the other hand, Isun would be an integrated informaton system, comprising modules for the registration of candidates and projects, project assessment, management, financial execution, auditing, on-site checks and trouble-shooting.