Key findings
Main problems companies face in public procurement procedures include: ample scope of documents required for participation in tender procedures, late collection of receivables for implemented procurement contracts and definition of eligibility criteria for participation in tender procedures that favour particular bidders.
Companies that have been awarded procurement contracts, in average, wait for six months to collect their receivables related to the contract performance.
Dominant share of surveyed companies believe that e-auctions result in attainment of unrealistically low prices, whereby quality is disregarded on the account of procurement prices.
High costs related to and distrust in appeal procedures are main reasons on whose account 93% of surveyed companies rarely or never motion appeals against public procurement procedures.
On the scale from 1 (negative) to 5 (excellent), companies assess the overall process on public procurements in the country with 2.86, which implies an insignificant improvement compared to 2012 assessment of 2.84.
Three most common proposals put forward by bidding companies and aimed to amend LPP are: change of the legal provision stipulating “lowest price” as the only selection criterion for the purpose of selection criteria to make due consideration of quality of products, services and works being procured; revoke the legal provision establishing mandatory organization of e-auctions for smallscale procurements whose value does not exceed 5,000 EUR; as well as, simplify and reduce scope of bid-related documents.
Comparative analysis of appeal procedures shows there is possibility to change deadlines for submission of appeals in public procurements, expanding the list of entities entitled to lodge appeals and introducing new, more equitable method on setting administrative fees for submission of appeals.
You can read more about the report in Macedonian and English language
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.