BRATISLAVA, May 31, (WEBNOVINY) — According to Finance Minister Ivan Miklos, for his department the decision on not providing a grant from the EU funds for the project of the Public Administration Central Portal (UPVS) is a closed matter. At a press conference on Tuesday, Miklos also rejected claims of representatives of the company SWAN, which leads a consortium that won the order, that the solution the company proposes could remove any doubts on overpricing. “For me, the arguments for my decision were in no way disproved. I consider this issue closed from my side,” said the minister.
The minister also repeated that his decision does not cancel the contract with SWAN, only its financing from the EU structural funds. He also rejected the possibility that his decisions was based upon incomplete information. Miklos rejected the idea of some committee revising his decision as unacceptable, as the decision he made was in his exclusive competence.
SWAN does not agree with the Finance Ministry’s statements referring to the project as overpriced and non-transparent and urges it to create an independent working group, which would scrutinize it in detail. “As a company we are aware of this project’s importance and therefore we would like to return the discussion to experts. We have therefore sent an open letter to the prime minister and the finance minister, including an appeal to form an independent expert group while we are prepared to bear costs associated with activities of this group in full,” said SWAN director general Miroslav Strecansky.
According to Strecansky, the SWAN-proposed solution will disperse any doubts on whether the UPVS project is overpriced and whether it is possible to finance it from the Operational Program Informatization of Society and also on whether its cancellation will have positive or negative effects regarding the informatization process.
If conclusions of experts confirm the Finance Ministry’s analysis, according to which the project is three-times overpriced and the procurement was non-transparent, the firm will be maximally cooperative in seeking an alternative solution and minimizing damages. However, if the state withdraws from the contract without an analysis, SWAN will demand compensation, which it estimates at EUR 18.4 million. The Finance Ministry has canceled UPVS project funding from Euro-funds, which totaled almost EUR 50 million. Minister Ivan Miklos (SDKU) argued that it is overpriced almost three times and what is more, the Public Procurement Office came to a conclusion that the procurement process was non-transparent. The terms were set, Miklos says, in order to prevent more bidders participating in the tender while the order was tailored for a concrete company. Miklos insisted that it was inevitable to scrap the contract as Brussels would not have repaid it and the contract would have had to be financed from state coffers.
The Finance Ministry still considers the UPVS project to be an important one, however, in its current state it could lead to the process of informatization being overcharged and delayed. There were projects with much less transparent procurement which the Ministry did not stop, commented SWAN marketing manager Martin Holak the situation, adding that the Public Procurement Office (UVO) approved that the tender was carried out in accordance with laws.
SITA