July 12, 2010
Policy update on public procurement reform
For the first time, a government of the Czech Republic has explicitly included public procurement reform as a major chapter of its program. Experts of the three parties negotiating a coalition agreement have proposed some strong first steps. Although they have not fulfilled the pre-election commitment by ODS and TOP 09 for comprehensive reform so far, these are steps in the right direction.
Platform for Transparent Public Tenders is ready to help governing parties integrate further measures aiming at higher transparency and efficiency of the procurement process into government documents and subsequently into law. We consider the document with 39 interconnected measures drafted by the Platform with participation of ODS, TOP 09 and CSSD (and many more public as well as private bodies) a high standard in the field of public procurement regulation.
Building blocks of the Platform are broad disclosure about public tenders, avoiding intentional division of public tenders, reducing room for public tenders designed for designated winners (including rules for transparent selection of evaluation criteria), fighting against cartel agreements among bidders, etc. At the same time, the Platform’s broad expert group consisting of representatives of 30 organisations (political parties, central and local government, civil and bussiness associations) is convinced that the proposed measures, as they are interconnected, will only have desired effect if adopted as a comprehensive package rather then individual selected measures.
To get the whole package adopted will be hard, but not impossible. First of all, the document is a declaration, not a detailed roadmap. It would have been somewhat implausible for the parties to include all 39 principles into the government declaration, even if they agreed with them. The absence of some, therefore, does not mean that they would not be part of the actual solution proposed by the government. And even if the government did not propose a comprehensive and effective reform, both the Social Democrats and the Communists have stated that they will work in parliament to achieve it.
We would have preferred a full embrace of the 39 points by the K9 team, but the points they have proposed already mean some improvement of the procurement process. We hope further talks between the Platform and governing parties and subsequently ministers will bring further improvements. As part of our commitment to the Platform, we are already talking to parliament about getting a comprehensive reform passed.”
The Platform will meet in the summer to discuss what steps to take to ensure the 39 principles will be adopted into law.
Dan Ťok