Kyiv, December 21, 2015. Draft law №3559 “On public procurement”, submitted to Parliament, is to introduce the successful “pilot” experience for all public procurement, not just pre-threshold, and should be adopted as soon as possible. Its consideration is impeded and has not even been considered by a relevant committee. It is expected to happen on December 23. “The savings from the reform of public procurement have been laid in draft budget for next year. Its advantage is that its implementation starts as soon as the new law comes into force. This is one of the easiest and most effective models for public spending cuts,” said Maksym Nefedov, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine (MEDT). The MEDT representative urged MPs not to delay consideration of the draft law. “This reform has the fastest payback cycle,” said Nefedov. If the pilot project ProZorro, launched in February this year, is extended to all government procurement in Ukraine, which constitutes 250 billion, it will save about 30 billion UAH. The project has already allowed for the state to save 12% of the tender, which is about 505 million UAH.
Oleksandr Starodubtsev, Director of Public Procurement Regulation at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, explained that the draft law introduces electronic procurement, given all the experience collected during the introduction of ProZorro. According to him, apart from new e-procurement procedures, an e-appeal procedure is introduced. The procurement procedures should be not only transparent but also convenient. “Everything, from submitting proposals to the appeal, must be in electronic form, conveniently, quickly, without leaving the office, without taking any more information,” said Mr. Starodubtsev. Also, the draft law introduces “professionalization of procurement”, because the customers’ professional training is rather low. Therefore, we introduce, firstly, the central purchasing body (CPB), providing for “consolidation” of purchases, that can raise them to higher level. “This is a common European practice, it is a correct trend and we should start it, and we do it with this draft law,” said Starodubtsev. And secondly, we introduce the possibility to attract professional customers with skills of procurement expertise, said Starodubtsev.
Olena Shcherban, expert of the Center for Combating Corruption, said that the draft law “On public procurement”, removes the fight against corruption to a new level. “The special value of e-procurement is that they give much better opportunity to analyze what is happening in public procurement at all on another level,”explained Elena Shcherban. She expressed the view that consideration of neglect and inaction of legislative initiative in this issues, shows that there is a desire to overcome corruption schemes. “There are alternative draft laws that only dissipate our attention and distract us from this draft law, thus slowing down the reform,”concluded the expert.
