The reform of the public procurement system is needed in order to adjust the national system to the international standards and the Community acquis, under the commitments assumed by ratifying the Association Agreement with the EU. For the public procurement system to be efficient, an appropriate legal framework, corruption prevention institutions and a functional and effective appeal system are needed, in the interests of all the players, director of the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul” Igor Munteanu stated in an event held to present the results of the monitoring of the decisions of the National Contestation Agency, IPN reports.
“Viitorul” expert Viorel Pirvan said that during five months the Agency rejected 52% of the challenges, admitted 19% and partially 24%. Over half of the challenged procurement procedures refer to goods, while 10% to services. “The analysis of decisions showed that in some cases the National Contestation Agency has a selective attitude to the examined challenges submitted by economic operators and this has an impact on the adopted solutions,” stated the expert.
Coordinator of the project Carolina Ungureanu presented a poll on the perception of the Agency’s work among economic operators and contracting authorities. According to 29% of the economic operators, corruption (agreements between bidders or between bidders and the authority) is the main cause that favors the process of challenging procurement procedures, while 24.1% of the contracting authorities put the low-quality assignment documents on the first place. Both the economic operates and the contracting authorities mentioned the technical specifications that favor a particular operator on the second place – 27% and, respectively, 21%. Some 33% of the contracting authorities and 37% of the business entities underlined the necessity of increasing transparency in the work of the Agency, some of them recommending broadcasting online the meetings, involving representatives of civil society in the decision-making process and reducing to zero the influence of the political class.
Iuri Cicibaba, staff head at the Ministry of Finance, spoke about the MTender, which is a public procurement instrument that will enable to save financial and human resources, to increase transparency, speed and competition in the procurement process. Among its advantages is the fact that the participants in the procedure can see and analyze the procurement plans, can see current procurement procedures and documents without money. All the economic operators are put in equal conditions. They can submit the bid online and take part in the electronic tender contest wherever they are and can see the prices of the other bidders during the electronic tender contest if the procurement procedure ends with an auction etc.
The decisions of the National Contestation Agency were monitored within the project “Cutting edge improvements in the public procurement system in the Republic of Moldova through inclusiveness, creativity and law-abiding practices” that is financed by the European Union and is co-financed by the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Moldova.
