Public spending must be completely transparent

“Representatives of the sectorial organizations must be included in the evaluation committees awarding public contracts”, the experts of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry proposed during a discussion about the upcoming changes in the Public Procurement Act. The new texts aim at achieving higher transparency of the public procurement procedures, reducing bureaucracy and guaranteeing more effective public spending.

“BCCI shares the position that when public procurement procedures are held, entirely electronic evaluation must be implemented and full transparence must be provided as far as the first three ranking bids are concerned. The fear of disclosing company secret, which until now restricted the access to information regarding the terms, prices and the respective weight of the evaluation criteria,may be valid for private tenders, but as far as public tenders are concerned everything must be transparent.”, the President of BCCI Mr. Tsvetan Simeonov said. This will be beneficial not only for the companies, but for the budget as well.

“We understand that it may be difficult for contracting authorities to always find experts from sectorial organizations in the various sectors of economy, nevertheless we believe that including representatives of the sectorial organizations in the evaluation committees will significantly increase transparency in procedures, which is one of the main goals of the Public Procurement Act”, said Mrs. Valentina Zartova, Head of BCCI’s Legal Directorate.

During the discussion organized by BCCI and “Funds Programmes Projects” Magazine the experts required higher transparency in the election of evaluators.

Prof. Damyan Damyanov questioned the qualifications of the experts evaluating the bids. Representatives of the Employment Agency on their turn objected to this proposal, because it would provide opportunities for manipulation and delay in execution of public contracts.

“There aren’t enough external experts to participate in all public procurements and that is why the use of their services is voluntary”, the Executive Director of the Public Procurement Agency Ms. Miglena Palvova said. She announced that at the moment there are 170 construction experts registered to participate in over 400 procurements announced.

The latest changes proposed in the Public Procurement Act were adopted by the Council of Ministers last week and will be discussed and voted by the National Assembly.

15.06.2011