Second semi-annual monitoring report on public procurements related to COVID-19 protection in 2021

on 09 August 2022.

High corruption risks and conflict of interests in COVID-19 procurements persist almost two years after the health crisis’ onset

Today, 10 August 2022, the Center for Civil Communications published its Report on Public Procurements Related to COVID-19 Protection developed on the basis of in-depth monitoring of tender procedures for procurement of goods, services and works whose contracts were awareded in the second half of 2021.

The monitоring detected several key problems and corruption risks, as follows:

In the second half of 2021 and more than one year after the onset of the health crisis, public procurements related to COVID-19 are still plagued by problems and corruption risks.
Estimated values of procurements continue to be set in amounts higher than prices attained at tender procedures, which might indicate to risks of purposeful action to create space for awarding contracts at higher prices and to afford corruptive dealings.
Without any exceptions, in the cases marked by one bidder or one qualified bidder after elimination of other bids during the evaluation stage, bided prices match or are very close to the procurement’s estimated value that has not been published, which refers to previous illegal arrangements between institutions and bidding companies.
The monitoring continues to observe high differences in price for same products procured in the same time period, ranging up to 500%.
In the case when reagents are procured, there is long-standing dependence from the company whose testing apparatus is used by the concerned institution, which implies a risk of paying higher prices for reagents and opportunity for corruption.
Poor supporting documents are available for already non-transparent negotiating procedures without previously announced call for bids.
Engagement of external associates and companies for implementation of public procurements related to COVID-19 carries an inherently high risk for conflict of interests and corruption.
Products that cannot be correlated to the coronavirus have been purchased as public procurements related to COVID-19, for example, passenger vehicle for business purposes with leather steering wheel, six speakers and metallic in colour.

This report is developed on the basis of in-depth monitoring of 40 public procurement procedures for goods, services and works related to COVID-19 protection whose contracts were signed in the second half of 2021, i.e. from 1 July to 31 December 2021. Targeted public procurements represent 52% of all COVID-19 tender procedures organized in the monitoring period (total of 77 tender procedures). The value of monitored tender procedure accounts for 1.25 million euros, i.e. 30.4% of the cumulative value of all COVID-19 public procurements organized in the analysed period (4.1 million euros).