Internal Rules for Anti-Corruption Procedures
INTERNAL RULES FOR IMPLEMENTING ANTI-CORRUPTION PROCEDURES AT THE PLEVEN PHILHARMONIC
CHAPTER ONE. GENERAL PROVISIONS
Section I. Scope, Goals, and Principles
Article 1. These Internal Rules regulate the conditions and procedures at the Pleven Philharmonic for the prevention and counteraction of corruption, corrupt practices, fraud, irregularities, abuses, errors, and other issues.
Article 2. The objectives of these Internal Rules are:
1. To increase public trust in the employees of the Pleven Philharmonic and to enhance public/civic oversight of the Pleven Philharmonic’s work;
2. To create guarantees for the accountability and transparency of the Pleven Philharmonic’s activities;
3. To improve efficiency in preventing corruption, corrupt practices, fraud, irregularities, abuses, errors, and other issues;
4. To establish values such as honesty, integrity, and morality among the employees of the Pleven Philharmonic.
Article 3. To achieve the objectives set forth in the previous article, various anti-corruption procedures and mechanisms for review, verification, monitoring, and reporting shall be applied.
Article 4. The implementation of these Internal Rules shall be carried out in accordance with the principles of legality, openness, transparency, accessibility, integrity, and intolerance to corruption, corrupt practices, fraud, irregularities, abuses, errors, and other issues.
Section II. Main Activities and Obligations
Article 5. The Director of the Pleven Philharmonic, by order, shall establish a permanent committee responsible for activities aimed at review, verification, monitoring, and reporting, to prevent, counteract, and detect corruption, corrupt practices, fraud, irregularities, abuses, errors, and other issues.
This committee shall include employees in leadership positions such as the Chief Conductor, the Chief Accountant, and the Artistic Secretary of the Pleven Philharmonic.
Article 6. (1) Monitoring involves the systematic and continuous observation of the processes and activities at the Pleven Philharmonic, including the collection, analysis, and use of timely information.
(2) Members of the permanent anti-corruption committee are responsible for conducting monitoring and reporting the results, and, if necessary, for conducting reviews and verifications when corruption, corrupt practices, fraud, irregularities, abuses, errors, and other issues are discovered or suspected.
(3) If weaknesses or gaps are identified during the activities mentioned in the previous paragraph, members of this committee shall take immediate action to improve the systems they have established for continuous monitoring and analysis of corruption risks in their respective units.
Article 7. Employees of the Pleven Philharmonic are obligated to:
1. Perform their duties lawfully and appropriately;
2. Not use their official position for personal gain or create suspicions of abuse;
3. Firmly reject any inappropriate offer of a benefit and under no circumstances accept it, assuming it could serve as evidence;
4. Firmly reject any inappropriate offer of a benefit and under no circumstances accept it, assuming it could serve as evidence;
5. Not derive personal or group benefits (financial, material, service, etc.) while participating in public procurement procedures;
6. Perform their direct official duties guided by the principles outlined in Article 4 of these Internal Rules;
7. Not use their delegated powers for personal or group benefit at the expense of the rights and lawful interests of others or the Pleven Philharmonic;
8. Not use information obtained during the performance of their official duties for personal gain (financial, material, service, etc.);
9. Not engage in any direct or indirect form of discrimination through their actions.
Article 8. (1) (1) Upon receiving a report at the Pleven Philharmonic containing allegations of corruption, corrupt practices, and/or conflict of interest, employees of Pleven Philharmonic are required to take action and fulfil the obligations stipulated in the Internal Rules for the Protection of Persons Submitting Reports of Corruption, Corrupt Practices, and/or Conflict of Interest, and the handling of such reports at the Pleven Philharmonic..
(2) When a report contains information about abuses, irregularities, fraud, errors, and other issues, its processing and review shall be conducted according to the general established procedure at the institution.
(3) If the report contains facts mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2, it shall be treated as a report of corruption, corrupt practices, and/or conflict of interest.
CHAPTER TWO. ANTI-CORRUPTION PROCEDURES
Section I. Reporting Procedures
Article 9. Reporting is mandatory upon discovering, identifying, or having information about corruption, corrupt practices, fraud, irregularities, abuses, errors, and other issues.
Article 10. (1) Employees of the Pleven Philharmonic are required to report such circumstances to the Director of the Pleven Philharmonic within the same working day of discovering them.
(2) The report shall be made in writing, but if the situation requires immediate action, the report can be made orally at the discretion of the employee and then documented.
Article 11. The Director shall provide the members of the permanent anti-corruption committee with the submitted documents for review and verification of the allegations and facts.
Article 12. Based on the results of the review and verification of the allegations and facts, the Director shall:
1. Send the report, along with the collected documentation, to the Ministry of Culture or another competent institution for review;
2. Immediately forward the report to the relevant investigative authorities – the prosecutor’s office, investigation, inquiry, etc.;
3. Undertake other necessary actions based on the factual situation.
Article 13. Reports of corruption, corrupt practices, fraud, and abuses shall be submitted in writing and can be sent to the Pleven Philharmonic through:
1. Postal mail or courier delivery to the address – Pleven, 155 Vasil Levski Street;
2. In person – at the administration at the same address;
3. In person – at the administration at the same address;
4. The Pleven Philharmonic’s website – www.plevenphil.com and the email address: report@plevenphil.com.
Article 14. Only reports with a specified address and sender will be considered.
Section II. Disclosure and Publicity Procedures
Article 15. (1) Information about cases of disclosed corrupt practices and imposed penalties on employees of the Pleven Philharmonic as a result of the application of the anti-corruption procedures shall be published on the Pleven Philharmonic’s website under the “Anti-Corruption” section.
(2) The information in paragraph 1 shall be published after the relevant administrative/judicial and/or other acts of the competent authority come into force.
Section III. Implementation Procedure
Article 16. (1) These Internal Rules must be strictly followed by all employees of the Pleven Philharmonic.
(2) To comply with the previous paragraph, the Internal Rules must be communicated to all employees of the Pleven Philharmonic for their information and implementation. Familiarity with their contents must be confirmed by the employee’s signature in a specially created list.
(3) The lists in paragraph 2 shall include the name, middle name, and surname of the individual, and their signature.
Article 17. When hiring an employee at the Pleven Philharmonic, they must be acquainted with these Internal Rules within ten days of starting their job.
Article 18. Any violation of these Internal Rules constitutes grounds for disciplinary action, following the provisions of the Labour Code.
CHAPTER THREE. ANTI-CORRUPTION PLAN
I. Development and Approval Procedure
Article 19. The anti-corruption plan must be developed following the guidelines for its creation, adopted by the National Anti-Corruption Strategy on 02.02.2018, and compliant in form and content with the Appendix to Article 1, paragraph 3 of the Guidelines.
Article 20. The committee established under Article 5 of these Rules shall develop the anti-corruption plan according to the approved template and submit it to the Director for approval.
Article 21. Every three months, the committee under Article 5 shall report to the Director of the Pleven Philharmonic on the measures taken, their timelines, the level of risk, stages of implementation, and the responsible persons.
ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS
§1. For the purposes of these Internal Rules:
1. “Corruption” is the solicitation, offering, giving, or acceptance, directly or indirectly, of a bribe or any other undue advantage or the promise thereof, which affects the proper performance of a duty or the required behaviour of the person receiving the bribe, undue advantage, or the promise thereof.
2. “Fraud” is any intentional/deliberate act or omission by one or more persons aimed at obtaining material benefits or an unfair or illegal advantage for oneself or others, and causing property damage by inducing or maintaining someone in deception.
Fraud also includes any deliberate action or inaction related to:
• Using or presenting false, incorrect, or incomplete statements or documents, leading to or potentially leading to misuse, wrongful withdrawal, or improper reduction of funds from the Pleven Philharmonic’s budget;
• Concealing information in violation of a specific obligation, leading to the results outlined in the previous sub-point;
• Using budgetary funds for purposes other than those for which they were originally allocated;
• Misusing lawfully obtained benefits with the same effect.
3. “Irregularity” is any violation of a provision of community or national law resulting from an act or omission that has or would have the effect of harming the Pleven Philharmonic’s budget through unjustified expenditure.
4. “Abuse” is:
• Abuse of authority: Abuse of position of hierarchical dependence and/or through giving, receiving, or promising benefits to perform or not perform a given action, to draft or omit to draft a document or to draft it with specific content, creating excessive difficulties and non-compliant and/or unregulated obligations and similar on a person in hierarchical subordination or carried out by a person exercising control.
• Abuse of office: The execution or non-execution by an official of actions in violation of regulatory provisions in the performance of his duties, to obtain undue benefits for him or another natural or legal person.
• Abuse of influence: The use of a position of power over a person to exert pressure on them, with or without direct threat, in a way that significantly limits their ability to make a lawful and reasoned decision or to make a decision at all; abuse of information, disclosure, provision, publication, use, or dissemination in any other way of facts and circumstances for which the corresponding permission has not been obtained from the authorized persons.
• Abuse of trust: When an employee consciously acts against the interests of Pleven Philharmonic and undermines the institution’s prestige.
• Abuse of law: The exercise of a right to harm the legitimate rights and interests of other persons.
• Abuse of property: Intentional misappropriation or other diversion by an official for his benefit or the benefit of another natural or legal person of property, public or private funds, or of any object with a certain value entrusted to him in his capacity as an official.
5. “Error” is any individual, unintentional inconsistency, deviation, and/or omission from the established regulated work regime that may affect or change the decision of the creator or user of information.
TRANSITIONAL AND FINAL PROVISIONS
§ 1. These rules are adopted in the implementation of the National Strategy for Prevention and Counteraction of Corruption for the period 2015 – 2020 and the approved anti-corruption plan of Pleven Philharmonic for 2018.
§ 2. These internal rules are approved by Order No. 20/ 22.02.2018 of the Director of Pleven Philharmonic.
§ 3. These Internal Rules shall enter into force on the day of their approval.
