The increase in the ceilings for public acquisitions by a draft law approved at the end of 2018 creates preconditions for considerably augmenting the volume of public funds used non-transparently and inefficiently, consider representatives of civil society. By a statement, a number of NGOs demand that the Ministry of Finance should work out and submit to the Government for approval a draft decision providing that the acquisitions whose value exceeds the ceiling of over 50,000 lei should be mandatorily performed by respecting minimum competition and transparency requirements through the MTender system.
In a news conference at IPN, Valeriu Ciorba, expert of the Association for Efficient and Responsible Governance, said the legislative amendments took effect in the middle of last December. By these, the ceilings for acquisitions that are not covered by the law on public procurement , which is acquisitions to the value of 80,000 to 200,000 lei for goods and services and of 100,000 lei to 250,000 lei for works, are raised. The low value acquisitions can be performed between contracting sides directly with economic operators in the absence of competition. These are not conducted through the new MTender system and there is no obligation for the contracting authorities to publish low value contracts in the system.
According to the expert, in such a situation civil society does not have access to these data and cannot influence the procurement process. If the use of the MTender system is made mandatory for low value acquisitions too, these could be performed by a click and transparency and competiveness in the public procurement process will be increased.
Association for Efficient and Responsible Governance president Olesea Stamate said the current provisions open up a gate for using public funds in a nontransparent way. The contracting authorities often divide a large acquisition into several acquisitions so that these could be classed as low value acquisitions.
In a statement, the NGOs firmly condemn the violation by the Government of the legislation on transparency in the decision-making process. They make reference to a draft Government decision concerning the amendment of a decision on the approval of the technical concept of the automated information system State Register of Public Procurement known as MTender. The draft decision was published on the Ministry of Finance’s website on January 29, 2019, with February 13 being indicated as the deadline for collecting opinions. However, the next day, on January 30, the draft was included in the agenda of the Government’s meeting and was approved. The NGOs consider such flagrant violation of the legislation on decisional transparency is inadmissible.
The signatories are: the Association for Efficient and Responsible Governance, the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives “Viitorul”, the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup”, WatchDog.MD Community, the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, East-Europe Foundation, the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, the Institute for Public Policy, Transparency International Moldova, the public association “Habitat”, the Association for Human Rights Lex XXI and the public association “Solidary Parents”.
