SUMMARY
Once “lowest price” was introduced as the single criterion on awarding public procurement contracts, and e-auctions are mandated for all tender procedures, there are numerous examples of tender procedures that have attained extremely low prices whereby likely is that the company awarded the procurement contract will not be able to perform it completely, under the required quality and quantity, as indicted therein. Contracting authorities are of the same opinion and demand introduction of safeguarding mechanism from extremely low prices that might endanger quality performance of procurement contracts.
Transparency remains one of the major problems affecting public procurements in the country. Some state institutions either do not publish tender data or publish them late, despite their obligation from the Law on Public Procurements, while other state institutions do not disclose information requested by means of FOI applications, despite their obligation from the Law on Free Access to Public Information. On the other hand, there are only a handful of institutions that are independently and voluntarily pursuing accountability and transparency and make data on public spending available to taxpayers and citizens.
Several months before legal provisions on mandatory publication of tender documents enter in effect, including legal provisions whereby defining eligibility criteria for tender participation becomes difficult and liable to sanctions, 45% of tender procedures monitored have not published their relevant tender documents, while as high as 60% of them included high eligibility criteria for tender participation.
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For more information, please contact the Center for Civil Communications at (02) 3213-513 or at center@ccc.org.mk.
This report is made possible by the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) within the USAID Civil Society Project.