Improving public procurement procedures leads to savings – 100.000 contracts signed in Serbia in 2015

Savings up to 20% relative to the previous year can be made by improving the public procurement system and the money saved can be used wherever it is needed, including schools and kindergartens, said Minister of Finance Dusan Vujovic.

Vujovic also pointed to the necessity of educating all those in the public procurement system so that Serbia would approach the world standards. – This will facilitate bringing negotiations about the fifth chapter in the accession process of Serbia to the EU to an end, as the chapter deals with public procurement procedures – Vujovic said.

In 2015, around 5,000 procuring entities, through more than 100,000 signed contracts, agreed on public procurement procedures in the amount of more than RSD 355 billion, which is 8.93% of the GDP.

Commenting on the fact that there were 100,000 public procurement contracts in 2015, Vujovic estimated that the number could have reached 150,000 if there hadn’t been restrictive regulations, since the Serbian Law on Public Procurement prescribes that a process can’t begin if the totality of the assets needed for the procedure hasn’t been provided.

The mayor of Belgrade, Sinisa Mali, stated that Belgrade was the first local self-government in Serbia to organize a centralized public procurement service and that savings of RSD 1.2 billion had been made in the previous two years as a result.

According to him, before 2013, when the procedure was initiated, nearly 40% of public procurement procedures had been carried out through negotiations, whereas the practice is now present in only 3% of the procedures.

– We have proven this way that we wish to be completely transparent, to save money, but also to give a good example to other local self-governments in our country. Each public procurement procedure in Belgrade is processed through the public procurement portal, available to all procuring entities – Mali pointed out.

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Grad Beograd

public procurement procedures

public procurement system

Dusan Vujovic

accession of Serbia to the European Union

gross domestic product

Law on Public Procurement

Sinisa Mali

public procurement portal