Thirty liters of brandy, five liters of olive oil, six kilograms of honey, six porcelain coffee sets and two wine sets, four brooches, three suits, two ties, one wristwatch... - No, it's not a family's shopping list , but about invoices for public procurement that certain ministries and municipalities had during 2021.
These invoices were obtained by the Institute of Alternatives, dealing with the analysis of public procurement with special reference to the mechanism of direct bargaining. A direct contract means that there is no public tender and that the value of the purchased goods and services does not exceed eight thousand euros.
"You order goods or services, even work in some cases, directly from those who correspond to you. And what another bidder would give to the state for a thousand euros, someone buys for five, and that's a very big difference, and that's why that mechanism is being abused," says Ana Đurnić from the Institute of Alternatives.
This mechanism was not only abused by certain incorporation into the price, but also by ordering and buying.
"That they procured through that mechanism suits worth 750 euros, gold cufflinks, porcelain coffee sets, and so on, some products that simply act as small luxuries for the state administration," says Đurnić.
Weakly controlled and non-transparent spending for public procurement has been a feature of the Montenegrin public procurement system almost since its establishment. Đurnić, however, adds that the legislative framework has been going backwards for years, because previously we had some restrictions - such as the fact that only 10 percent of the jobs out of the total money earmarked for public procurement could be contracted in this way. Thus, from some 15 million euros in 2017, it reached 60 million euros in 2022.
"When we add up for the past 10 years, we see that an entire annual budget was spent in that way, very directly and very non-transparently," says Đurnić.
In the Directorate for Public Procurement, they say that with some new legal solutions and acts, above all by establishing a central electronic system, they have done a lot in terms of the transparency of public procurement, which they have made public.
"We have introduced that for purchases worth more than four thousand euros, in addition to being realized by way of direct negotiation, i.e. invoices or invoices, a contract must be concluded," says director of the Directorate for Public Procurement Policy Jelena Jovetić.
The findings of the Institute of Alternatives further show that the direct bargaining mechanism was used in over 2021 percent of public procurements during 90.
"It's a really big, multimillion-dollar sum," points out Đurnić.
The Ministry of Finance says that the reason for such a large percentage in 2021 should be sought in the fact that the budget was not adopted on time that year.
"And there was a bridging of a certain period, for the sake of the functioning of the system, through invoices and direct negotiations," said Jovetić.
Inspection controls so far show that there were irregularities during the implementation of procurement through direct negotiation. From 2021 to April of this year, about 30 violations were recorded.
"They concern the procurement of airline tickets, business trips, mobile telephony. All of them have been prosecuted, misdemeanor warrants have been issued for some, proceedings have been initiated before the misdemeanor court for some," says public procurement inspector Ivan Milićević.
Fines from two to 20 thousand euros are provided for these violations. However, if the perpetrators of these offenses are ministries or municipalities, there will be no fines, because a state or local government body cannot be fined. Due to all of the above, the Alternative Institute requests that the annual consumption through direct negotiations be limited to 20 thousand euros, regardless of the total budget of the public procurement contractor, as well as that the contractors have the obligation to proactively publish all contracts and invoices concluded in this way.
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