21.03.2013.
Source : Vesti.rs
On March 21, Serbia obtained the first 25 local public procurement trainers who will train state officials throughout the country. Those acquainted with the situation point out that today, in public procurement procedures it is not sufficient to be knowledgeable about legal regulations, but that knowledge of economy and business are also necessary.
...According to an assessment of the head of the European Integration Section of the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia, Mr. Freek Janmaat, the situation with public procurements in Serbia has been „rather worrying“ in the past two years. The number of tenderers per tender has fallen to only three and a large number of procurements are awarded employing the urgency of procedure even when there is no justification for doing so.
...Twenty five local experts have undergone a five-week training on international and European practices in public procurements. Their training is a part of a regional project in which countries of the Western Balkans and Turkey are included.
The project is carried out by the Training Center of the International Labor Organization and the French Agency for International Cooperation.
The project manager of the European Commission Patricia Perez-Gomez said that it was a regional project, which was unusual for the field of public procurements, but that it was important because it enabled regional experiences to be built into and upon the national practice.
She pointed out that public procurement officials in the region had at their disposal the regional school for state administration ReSPA.
Even though the project was due to be terminated in June 2013, she said that more training would be provided in order to advance implementation of the road map for education in the field of public procurements.
A total of 150 people were trained in the entire region, and a part of the project is a short on-line course on public procurements as well as establishment of a regional network of public procurement experts communicating via an e-platform.
A large number of items procured by urgent procedures
The project leader of the regional training center Mr. George Jadoun said that in Serbia 12,000 procuring entities had spent four billion Euros and 3,000 of them were extremely large procuring entities. The officials working on public procurements had to possess versatile knowledge because goods which governments procure were becoming more and more versatile, he stressed.
The director of the Public Procurement Office Predrag Jovanović announced that implementation of the new public procurement law would begin on April 1 as planned.
He said that the Office would submit a report on 2012 public procurements by March 31, 2013.
Jovanović emphasized that the new law on public procurements required new knowledge and skills which had not been familiar so far. He said that so far over 1,500 public procurement officials were certified, obtaining the beginners’ knowledge on public procurements.
The head of the European Integration Section of the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia, Mr. Freek Janmaat, said that situation in Serbia in the past two years in the field of public procurements had been „rather worrying.“
„An average number of tenderers per tender has fallen from eight in 2003 to two or three last year, producing damaging consequences for competitiveness and favorability of prices of procured goods,“ Janmaat said. There is a widespread use of unjustified urgent procurement procedures rather than the open ones.
Janmaat reiterated that the total value of public procurements was four billion Euros and that violations in conducting public procurements pertained to procured goods, services and works worth 800 million Euros, while some of the violations were committed due to lack of knowledge.
As he said, when Serbia opens membership negotiations with the EU, no transition period would be granted to Serbia in adopting European regulations in the field of public procurements.
Visit us on our