Kyiv School of Economics launches courses to train making public procurement through Prozorro system – authors

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The training will explain the system in details and will include teaching strategic planning and project management.

Kyiv School of Economics launches the Centre of Excellence in Procurement (CEP) – a training program that will teach how to make public procurement through Prozorro system. This was stated by Oleksandr Starodubtsev, director of Regulatory Department for State Procurements, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, at a briefing held at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. According to him, the major problem of public procurement is unprofessional users of the system. However, there are online courses for most of them. In its turn, CEP focuses on a limited range of players. “There is a fairly small segment of very large customers – ports, Energoatom, Ukrainian Railways, and Ministry of Defense. They are well versed in the process, but we want to tell them more about the philosophy, that we need a strategy to start with, why we need public procurement, how to plan them correctly, how to take into account seasonality – it is more about management, not the procedure itself,” explained Mr. Starodubtsev.

Natalya Shapoval, director for economic & political research, Kyiv School of Economics, said that the training will start next year. It consists of several parts: the economic basis – how to make strategic decisions, how to count the expected cost; the legal chapter dedicated to the national legislation and international tools, and training in project management:  the way to consider the market, communicate with suppliers, etc. “The course is aimed at ensuring that decisions-makers act strategically and include procurement in the strategy of organization and map them to the services or goods produced by the company,” noted Ms. Shapoval.

Prozorro is only a tool. It all depends on how it is used. “Procurement is a long process. It includes, in particular, planning the needs, determining the right amount, market analysis, vendor selection, contract testing, its performance, quality analysis, logistics, etc.,” said Oleksandr Nakhod, deputy general director on procurement, public post company “Ukrposhta”.