The system of preventing and processing conflicts of interest in public procurement can be improved through preventive and repressive action, it is necessary to network the system, not to put all the pressure on one institution, and for the public to have a controlling role, it is necessary to improve transparency.
This was announced at the conference "Fight against corruption and prevention of conflicts of interest in public procurement", which was organized by the Institute of Alternatives within the project "For purposeful spending of public money!", with the financial support of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Serbia and Montenegro, PR Center reports.
The President of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Alternatives, Stevo Muk, believes that resolving a potential conflict of interest in time and in favor of the public interest is one step before a conflict of interest becomes corruption, and that correcting the consequences arising from a conflict of interest is an expensive and painstaking process, if at all. comes.
"Until now, Montenegro has lacked a strategic and reforming, systemic approach to this topic. How many times have we heard how Montenegro is small and that "everyone is with everyone" in some conflict of interest. Other countries with smaller populations have also managed to solve , or at least reduce the scope of this problem. That must not be an excuse. Especially since over half a billion euros are spent annually on public procurement, or over 10 percent of GDP," Muk pointed out.
The deputy head of the mission of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Serbia and Montenegro, Ana Sietska Brinks, clarified that the conflict of interest in public procurement is a key indicator of the country's success in joining the EU.
"We concluded that progress has been made, however, a lot still needs to be done in this area. In the coming period, Montenegro should work on implementing the laws it has adopted, respect the principles of EU public procurement and improve the system defined by the rulebook. Conflict of interest is a complicated topic, it has many different layers and it takes time for solutions in this area. The good news is that we can start today, because the rules are important, but sooner or later it all boils down to our behaviors, or the behaviors we tolerate in others," said Sietske Brinks.
The president of the Center for Civic Communication from North Macedonia, German Filkov, said that one of the novelties of the Law on Public Procurement in that country is that members and the president of the State Commission for handling complaints in public procurement procedures are exempt from handling complaints in which their side has a conflict of interest.
"Subsequent employment, engagement and business cooperation and ownership of any person - representative of the contracting authority, who participated in any way in a certain public procurement procedure in a company that was awarded a contract through that procedure, is also prohibited, if the value of the contract is greater than five percent of the total the value of all public procurement contracts of that client," said Flikov.
He said that in practice there are few cases of recognition of conflicts of interest, not only in public procurement but in general, and even fewer, as he added, are examples of successful resolution of such cases.
Dubravka Klišmanić, Head of the Procurement Department at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Shipbuilding at the University of Zagreb, explained that in that country the contracting authority is obliged to take appropriate measures to effectively prevent, identify and remove conflicts of interest in connection with the public procurement procedure, in order to avoid disruption of the market competitions and ensured equal treatment for all business entities.
"Also, the ordering party is obliged to publish on its website a list of business entities with which the head, member of the administrative, management and supervisory body of the ordering party or persons related to him have a conflict of interest, or a notification that such entities do not exist, that is, include this information in the documentation for competition," said Klišmanić.
The Chairperson of the Assembly of Transparency International from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aleksandra Martinović, said that the absence of adequate policies and practices for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest, especially in the field of public procurement, is one of the key factors that contribute to the image of the captivity of that country and its institutions, as well as the captivity of BIH public procurement system.
"Referring to the Law on Public Procurement on the provisions of regulations on conflicts of interest at different levels of government is problematic given that there are no mutually agreed laws in BiH that treat conflicts of interests in a unique way, the regulations on conflicts of interests are numerous, complicated, inconsistent and ineffective, on laws are not applied at all at some administrative levels", said Martinović.
She pointed out that examples of good practices can be found at certain lower administrative levels.
The Secretary General of the National Integrity Agency from Romania, Silviu Popa, pointed out that in less than two years, the National Integrity Agency managed to develop an electronic system (PREVENT) that automatically cross-checks and improves data from various databases and registers, in order to identify the existence family ties among participants in public procurement procedures, as well as ties between ordering parties and bidders and, consequently, a potential conflict of interest.
"At the same time, the Romanian authorities adopted regulations to enable the PREVENT system to function. When potential conflicts of interest cannot be prevented, then we cannot do anything," explained Popa.
The Director General of the Directorate for Public Procurement Policy in the Ministry of Finance, Jelena Jovetić, said that the New Law on Public Procurement, which has been in effect since July, has significantly improved transparency.
"What is of particular importance to us is the new electronic public procurement system, the implementation of which began in January. Although it was difficult and challenging, in the year behind us we had about 550 million public procurements. These are purchases without energy and coal purchases. The novelty of our regulatory framework is that even simple procurements are carried out through the electronic public procurement system. For 2020, we have an increase in the competitiveness index to 2,27", said Jovetić.
In response to the question whether the new electronic public procurement system enables networking with databases important for the timely prevention of conflicts of interest, such as the Central Register of Business Entities, the Tax Administration and the like, Jovetić replied that the networking of some databases is already provided for in the Draft Strategy for the Improvement of Public Policy procurement and public-private partnership.
"In our Action Plan for 2021 and 2022, we have a measure that directly relates to the further improvement of the electronic public procurement system, and we have the means to upgrade the system that relates to the connection of institutions in the system in the part of public procurement control. There are no technical obstacles in that segment so that we can coordinate with other relevant institutions in the coming period," concluded Jovetić.
The head of the Department for Public Procurement in the Municipality of Budva, Tanja Simićević, concluded that everything boils down to the responsibility of the client, recognition of conflicts of interest and possible action by the client, and indicated that it is specific that under the new law, the procedure is initiated with a declaration of the absence of a conflict of interest. .
"The moment of signing the statement is questionable. This statement would play a more significant role and make a greater contribution when you already have a completed contract on public procurement, which is ready for signature, when all of us who participated in the entire procedure until the conclusion of the contract can sign because we know the bidder, we have a clean procedure, a declaration of non-existence conflicts of interest and conclusion of contracts. I think that with preventive previous measures, that statement would have had a much greater effect, because I don't know who of all the persons involved in the entire process could sign before concluding the contract that they are not in a conflict of interest, but they are," explained Simićević.
The Director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption of Montenegro, Jelena Perović, explained that the Agency currently has two segments in which it deals with public procurement, namely through whistleblower reports and through the financing of political parties and the electoral process.
"Out of 460 applications since the beginning of the Agency's work, ending with the first quarter of this year, 31 applications related to public procurement processes. The largest number of reports related to irregularities in the field of public procurement at the local level, 32 percent, and 29 percent at the state level. In 19 percent of the reports, it was determined that the public interest was endangered, while in the rest, the existence of irregularities was not determined," said Perović.
As she said, the agency acted in 22 cases and four were concluded with recommendations, in 9 cases other competent authorities acted and two were positively concluded, and all of this is not public, because the identity of the whistleblower is protected.
Deputy President of the Anti-corruption Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro, Dragan Bojović, believes that it is very important to find a way to more efficiently resolve the conflict of interests and believes that the question is how much more effective the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption can be.
"Perhaps in a certain sense it is overcrowded with documentation, perhaps the number of reports that are submitted is too large. This should be reduced and the people working in the Agency should be enabled to be more efficient, that is, to concentrate on exposing corruption and not on administration. I don't know how good it would be if all this problem were transferred exclusively to the Agency. The institutions responsible for control in the field of public procurement should be networked, the data should be centralized," said Bojović.
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