Too low tenders, harm the competition

Prishtina May 17 – Today, Movement FOL held the coordination meeting with institutions on procurement. At the meeting it was discussed about the overall situation of public procurement, focusing on a range of issues and concerns dealing exactly with this field.

The main concerns that have been identified in this meeting by the participants were numerous weaknesses in procurement legislation and competition, and insufficient institutional capacity to eliminate these corrupt practices and other legal irregularities in this area.
Within the legal framework the identified weaknesses are:
” The Public Procurement Law does not specify the lowest price per unit, but only for the total price of the economic operator offering in a particular procurement activity;
” Public Procurement Law contains mainly the cheapest price, along with the most economically advantageous, as the main criterion in all procurement activities;
” Public Procurement Law does not specify sanctions for Economic Operators that perform various criminal offenses during the bidding activities;
” The lack of other laws and guidelines to better-explain various provisions in the field of public procurement for various officials in Other Contracting Authorities;
” Law on Protection of Competition disables the scope of the Competition Commission to take punitive actions (such as fines) to the EO that offer prices that distort the market in the Republic of

Kosovo, and dispel the interest of serious international companies;
Within the institutional framework the identified weaknesses are related to:
” Lack of training in the field of competition – for procurement officials and civil society monitors;
” Lack of human capacity to supervise the implementation of contracts by the Contracting Authority;
” Lack of joint meetings between the institutions responsible for public procurement;
” Non- published interpretations and monitoring by the PPRC.

Despite these issues, the participants discussed the need of private sector involvement in fighting and preventing corruption and the elimination of irregularities and legal violations in the field of public procurement. These issues, but also many others that are expected to be brought at the next meeting will be addressed in time to all relevant instances that would affect the improvement of public procurement.
At this meeting were: Public Procurement Regulatory Commission, Public Procurement Review Body, Kosovo Competition Authority and the Contracting Authority as the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Administration, MLGA, Municipality of Peja, etc..

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