Price as basic criterion for selection of best bid - Strengthening public procurements in Serbia

Better control of public procurements, more economic implementation of procedures, easier detection of irregularities, as well as establishment of European standards, are the aims of the Strengthening Public Procurements in Serbia project (JJNS), which was presented to the media today.

With the aim of enabling improvement and reform of public procurements in Serbia, the European Commission has granted a support to the Government of Serbia and the Public Procurement Administration. This assistance will be realized through IPA project that will be implemented during the next two years by the Association for Local Administration of Denmark.

Corruption map, CPV codes, contemporary organization of public procurement agencies, Commission for protection of bidders' rights, application of the rules of procurements (PraG) - all these are innovations that will be implemented within the project.

- Reform of public procurements is necessary to allow for the best use of funds of tax payers. Serbia has taken on the obligation of bringing its public procurements in accord with the procedures in the European Union within next few years. It is necessary to introduce a system for efficient spending of the money of tax payers, establish better control of money spending, create a fair competition in both public and government sector - said Vincent Degert, the Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Serbia, and added that he expected the members of the Commission for Protection of Bidders' Rights to be appointed soon.

Milica Delevic, the Director of the EU Integration Office, has reminded that 4 billion euros were spent on public procurements in 2009.

- If the basic principles of public procurements are respected - economy, efficiency, equality of bidders, competitiveness is improved, quality of delivered goods and services is better, delivery deadlines are shorter, and a unique system to fight corruption is being established - said Delevic.

During the next five years, as she added, domestic bidders should be equalized with foreign ones and the price will be the basic criterion for selection of the best bid.

(Rene Nigard-Jensen, Milica Delevic, Vincent Degert, Predrag Jovanović)

Rene Nigard-Jensen, an adviser in the Embassy of Denmark to Serbia, pointed out that there was a space for savings in public procurements in Serbia, which is the aim of the application of the project financed by the EU.

According to the assessment by Public Procurement Administration Director Predrag Jovanovic, the significant of the Strengthening Public Procurements in Serbia project lies in establishment of better control and easier detection of irregularities in the public procurement procedures.

- "Corruption map" will be made for Serbia for the first time in the field of public procurements and it will determine the riskiest points in the procedures of public procurements, as well as methods to avoid them - said Jovanovic.

As he explained, the plan is that new organization of public procurement agency be introduced on both republic and local level in order to be specified who is reponsible for what, and the Public Procurement Administration will be applying the rules of procurements (PraG) that govern the use of the EU IPA funds.

- Based on the experiences gained during the application of the new project, amendments to the Law on Public Procurements should be prepared in two years - said Jovanovic and pointed out that the Public Procurement Portal of the Public Procurement Administration, the place where bids and information on bidders and contracted procurements are published, would be improved as well.

As he said, one of the aims of this project is to enable SMEs to find jobs, which will be achieved by establishment of tools - templates of agreements, bids, which will be standardized, as well as through education of businessmen on how to participate in tenders.

- At the same time, it is necessary to attract bidders to take part in public procurements - Jovanovic concluded.

In order to get closer to the standards of the European Union, it is necessary to establish CPV codes, and that field has the priority in the project.

Since 2006, the use of CPV codes (Common Procurement Vocabulary) is mandatory in the EU when requests for tenders are announced. They represent internationally standardized numeric codes for various areas of products and services.

M.K.