BRATISLAVA, November 12, (WEBNOVINY) – A draft revision to the Public Procurement Act submitted to the Parliament’s filing room on Friday by six coalition deputies should ensure a more efficient spending of public finances due to tougher conditions of public procurement processes. Also, the legislation is aimed to upgrade transparency of public procurement and limit space for corruption and cronyism. The revision, which will take effect on March 1, 2011 if approved, will introduce mandatory e-auctions in case of above limit contracts, and as of January 1, 2012 also with sublimit orders. The initiative of the submitters was approved by the Justice Ministry, and the authors also cooperated with experts and non-governmental organizations on the material.
The fact that all parties of the incumbent coalition threw their weight behind the draft revision proves that the coalition is unified in terms of the fight against corruption so that public finances are spent in a thrifty way, commented one of the authors, Kamil Krnac of SaS. He added that about EUR 5 billion from public sources is spent annually on public procurement. Tougher rules can help save hundreds of millions of euros as they will prevent advance agreements on contracts to be awarded. The revision is based on the government program statement.
E-auction should be announced with contracts for supplies of goods, provision of services and implementation of construction works if it is possible to exactly set the technical requirements. Procurers will not be obliged to launch e-auction with sublimit contracts but they will have to publish quarterly reports on low-value orders exceeding EUR 1,000.
The evaluation of bids by a committee should be made public, except for confidential aspects of bids and business secret. Procurers will not be allowed to exclude an excessively low bid from competition without giving reasons. The deadline for submission of offers must not be shorter than twenty days since the announcement of the invitation by the Public Procurement Office. The revision reintroduces the option for the Office or a prosecutor to ask a court to nullify contracts and their annexes, within a year of their conclusion, if these are sealed at odds with the law. Also, the material will halt the practice of increases in tendered prices in the form of annexes. It will be possible to raise the contractual price by 15 percent at most.
SITA