Capacity-Building in Public Procurement in Serbia

Corruption in the area of public contracting wastes enormous amounts of public money which is urgently needed for the most basic public services. This is in large part due to the fact that the procurement of public goods and services amounts to 16 % of the overall Gross Domestic Product (estimations for Serbia ). It is these large amounts of money which create strong temptations and which offer ample opportunities for corruption in the public sector. In Serbia , the amount of public procurement is even greater than in other countries due to huge number of non-privatised enterprises. At the same time, potential risks of corruption is greater due to strong influence of political parties to the work of public enterprises and deeply rooted practices and mechanisms of illicit public contracting. On global level, that damage from corruption is estimated at normally between 10 and 25% of the contract value, while no firm data of that kind exists for Serbia .

The capacity of Public Procurement Authorities has oftentimes been neglected when fighting corruption in the economic sphere. These institutions are understaffed and insufficiently trained. Transparency Serbia sees the conduct of the Public Procurement Authorities staff as well as their capacity to perform in a fair and effective manner as absolutely crucial in ensuring transparency and efficiency of the public procurement processes.

Serbia has modern legislation in area of public procurement only since year 2002. Public procurement law was a basis to establish Public Procurement Office and Commission for protection of (bidders') rights in later years. While the new law, institutions and procedures improved significantly previous practice there are many problems both in legislation, its implementation and work of institutions mentioned that should be tackled in following period.

The project also aims to further promote the principles of free-movement, non-discrimination and transparency that are integral to the EC Treaty and that are often circumvented due to corrupt practices in public procurement offices. Project will address to following activities

 

•  Assessing of current legislation and processes of public procurement in Serbia ; issuing of recommendations

•  Designing of tool/assessing capacities of public procurement authorities

•  Drafting of proposals for amendments of law, by-laws and internal acts

•  Providing of trainings and technical assistance for public procurement authorities

•  Monitoring of implementation of public procurement procedures

•  Advocating for commitment of relevant authorities to accept and adopt recommendations and awareness raising activities

•  Final conference with participants from the Western Balkan countries

 

This project will be implemented in cooperation with Public Procurement Office and Commission for Protection of Biders' Rights of the Government of the Republic of Serbia .

The project is funded by Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The stated views belong to the authors and do not necessarily present the donator's opinions.

Efikasne javne nabavke

Press-clipping

Public Procurement Law