The public procurement reform will be stepped up, stimulated also by the new legislative provisions. Such assurances were formulated in a conference on the issue staged by the Ministry of Finance and the EBRD on April 28, IPN reports.
Minister of Finance Octavian Armasu said that the new Law on Public Procurement takes effect on May 1. “This would be as starting point for a number of reforms we aim to do. These are necessary because the current government procurement system is not trusted by business entities. There are signals and complains about the unfair treatment of the participants in tender contests to do work and provide services with public money. They cannot defend their rights. The system incorporates group interests and conflicts, generating corruption,” he stated.
The minister noted that to make the public procurement system work for the benefit of the state, the national public budget, the donors and the people, transparency should be insured in the procurement process and all the business entities and the people should be informed how much money was spent and on what. Economies of scale will be implemented, when the acquisitions are made for a number of institutions, when large quantities are bought at lower prices. The principle of purchasing at the lowest price offered turned out to be vicious.
According to Octavian Armasu, the public procurement system will be extended to cover public-private partnership and concession projects. An independent agency for solving conflicts in the public procurement process will be set up under Parliament. These conflicts will thus not be dealt with by the Public Procurement Agency. Also, there were drafted five regulations for putting the new Law on Public Procurement into practice.
Wicher Slater, head of the economic section of the EU Delegation to Moldova, welcomed the Government’s intention to reform the government procurement system and to eliminate corruption from it. “This would mean not only rational and appropriate spending of public money and offering of goods and services of a high quality by public institutions, but also improvement of the business climate,” he stated.
EBRD programs director Veconica Arpentin said the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is the largest investor in Moldova and it thus wants the money it offers to be used correctly. The Bank will support the reform of the public procurement system and will also help to implement the electronic public procurement system.
