A Greek programmer wants to make checking municipal spending as simple as asking an AI a question with his tool, diafaneia.ai, that draws on public records and directs users toward the documents behind its answers. The aim: help citizens understand government decisions without navigating thousands of individual files.
The independent project builds on Diavgeia, Greece’s official platform for publishing administrative decisions. It offers another way to explore those records, rather than replacing the government service. Users can ask questions in everyday Greek instead of starting with administrative codes.
A question about municipal projects
Creator Konstantinos-Ilias Ntounis began with a practical concern: what projects did his municipality undertake, and how much did they cost?
The 25-year-old programmer encountered Diavgeia while browsing online in March. Its extensive records interested him, but finding useful information proved difficult. That experience prompted him to develop a more accessible search tool.
The service offers free access with registration. It returns structured answers alongside the decisions and documents supporting them. Ntounis also said that specific questions produce better results.
For someone investigating a local project, that suggests a focused starting point. Name the municipality, identify the project, and specify the period. Then examine the supporting decisions rather than relying solely on the summary.
What Greece’s transparency platform does
Greece introduced Diavgeia in October 2010 to open government decisions to public scrutiny. Ministries joined first, followed by other public bodies and local authorities during the program’s phased rollout.
The reform required covered institutions to publish administrative acts online, while protecting sensitive information. Greece’s Interior Ministry presented public access as a central purpose of the initiative. Citizens could search through keywords and subject categories across participating organizations.
Each published decision receives a unique identification number, known in Greek as an ADA. That identifier helps users locate the original record and refer back to it. The official program explicitly connects access to information with closer public scrutiny of government activity.
Diafaneia.ai addresses a different challenge: helping people interpret and connect information that public authorities already publish. Its approach combines questions in ordinary language with references to the underlying records.
The project describes checks that compare financial amounts against the text of administrative decisions.
The platform distinguishes between verified amounts, declared amounts, and disputed figures. Its account draws on the project’s explanation of its methods. Only amounts that pass the platform’s verification process contribute to its totals. Consequently, those totals may fall below the sum of figures that public bodies originally entered.
That distinction matters when someone asks how much a municipality spent. A figure requires context: which records support it, what period does it cover, and what does it exclude?
How citizens can approach the results
Best Practices for Interpreting and Verifying Results Citizens should view AI-generated answers as a preliminary guide for deeper investigation rather than a final verdict. To ensure absolute accuracy when analyzing municipal spending, users should treat these summaries as a starting point for examining the official public records.
A thorough verification process begins by opening the linked administrative decision to double-check its specific date, the official issuing authority, and the project description. It is essential to directly compare the financial figure provided in the AI’s answer with the exact amount recorded within the official government document.
Furthermore, before attempting to compare spending between different municipalities, users must establish that both searches cover equivalent timeframes and identical spending categories to avoid inaccurate conclusions. If a number appears inconsistent or a discrepancy arises, it is best to approach the data constructively by asking for clarification from the relevant bodies before drawing conclusions about officials or contractors.
An unexplained data mismatch warrants further checking and objective inquiry rather than an automatic accusation of wrongdoing. For the project’s creator, Konstantinos-Ilias Ntounis, the journey began with a simple curiosity about civic projects close to home. By bridging the gap between conversational AI and official records, his tool serves as an entry point that empowers residents to move seamlessly from a simple question to the legally binding government decision behind it.
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