Public Procurement Regulatory Commission should compose the list of reference prices

Prishtina, May 8 – Today FOL Movement at a press conference addressed the problem of unusually low prices in public procurement. This is one of the most common problems encountered during direct monitoring of procurement procedures by FOL Movement conducted in various public institutions.
Kenan Tora from FOL Movement stated ” unusually low prices are the prices that offered for stuff by economic operators respectively different companies in their offers which are incomparably lower than the prices of the stuff on the market.” This happens as a result that the total value of the offer be the cheapest, knowing that the current Public Procurement Law, Article 61 “Tenders unusually low” does not specify the unusually low prices per unit and in Article 60 “Award Contract Criteria ” winning economic operator is declared based only on the lowest price of the offer in total. Whereas unusually low prices are offered for those items that the economic operators consider will be required the least after signing the contract.
Kenan Tora also declares that “although, the current Public Procurement Law does not specify unusually low prices for articles and PPRC has not yet composed a list of reference prices at least for basic items in different sectors, disqualification from the tender of economic operators that institutions consider have offered unusually low prices in various articles has no legal basis and is practically impossible.”
Therefore, this problem is creating opportunities for manipulation with price in total, and as a result is damaged the fair competition between economic operators. Additionally, as a result of this problem on various occasions there are consequences in the implementation of contracts, where there are even cases when economic operators require the termination of the contract because they cannot provide the required services with the prices that were offered in the beginning.
After that, FOL Movement during the presentation ” unusually low prices ” has demonstrated cases of various contracts where different items have been offered at unusually low prices such as: the door of the car 1.00 euro, windshield wipers 12.00 euro , steering wheel air bag 65.00 euro, different parts of the car with the price of 0.01 cents, steak: 2.00 euro, pasta 0.40 cents, various food products 0.10 cents, etc.
Further, Kenan Tora said that “FOL Movement has reacted and has expressed its concern constantly about this problem. Besides this, FOL proposed that within the amendment of Public Procurement Law to include a new item in Section 61 “Tenders unusually low”, where PPRC will be obliged by law to prepare a list of reference prices “.
Even today, FOL called PPRC that in accordance with current laws which allow the PPRC to do such a thing, in cooperation with the Competitiveness Agency they should compose a list of reference prices of basic items, where institutions will be based and would carry out the bid evaluation procedure and would have legal grounds for protection of fair competition and selection of an offer at realistic prices.
This, except protecting fair competition would have a very positive impact on the successful and quality implementation of signed contracts.
Check this link for a full presentation: levizjafol.org/documents/20140508112811313.pdf