Although the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is one of the largest in the Cabinet with its over 600 employees and officials, there were still no experts there to write new internal rules for planning, organizing , assigning and monitoring of public procurement. Development of this key document regulating the distribution of millions of euros has been assigned to PIS Consult Ltd. For these services, the company owned by Asen Gantchev and Peter Bakardzhiev will receive 50,000 levs without VAT.
The fact that the writing of strategies and the preparation of legislation, regulations and methodologies is often transferred to private companies, the BANKER covered in its issue 40 of October 4. Interestingly enough, the company in this case, PIS Consult is selected at the discretion of the Minister Dimitar Grekov, without holding an auction or tender. He used a loophole in the Public Procurement Act which empowers agreement without public announcement as an exception. And although in such movements there is nothing illegal it is immediately felt that something is amiss. Indeed, the creation of well-structured and effective internal rules on public procurement require experts with legal education, practical experience and theoretical knowledge. But is it true that such qualities cannot be found within the Ministry itself? The motives of the decision signed by Minister Grekov explained that the Legal Directorate of the ministry was extremely burdened with tasks and was busy preparing and coordinating views on bills to resolve cases of factual and legal complexity as well as protect the public interest.
In view of the need for special knowledge, specialization in the field of public procurement and the technological time needed for the preparation of internal rules complying with the requirements of the Public Procurement Act as well as the relevant content and quality, the rules should be drawn up in emergency operating modus, reads the reasoning of the minister.
However, the documents does not state exactly how the winning company was selected, which is even more important on the huge competition in the industry and the importance of the task? The Public Procurement Register makes it is clear that PIS Consult had not won other procedures for public orders before that.
For the BANKER, Yasen Gantchev said that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, contacted him after seeing the company’s product portfolio, and admitted he had not worked with this institution before. A check in the website of the company shows that PIS Consult has so far only been involved in projects of Burgas, Primorsko, Pomorie and Sofia municipalities, the Bulgarian Judges Association Registry, the Bulgarian Institute of forensic experts, the Institute for Legal Analyzes and Studies (in whose management Ysen Gantchev is a member) , as well as some other public institutions.
According Gantchev, the writing the internal rules for the procurement by external experts was a very good move of the ministry, as there would be no influence and dependencies. He knew no one there and there was no way influence on him may be exerted, Mr. Gantchev said. PIS Consult in his words would develop very good riles and in line with European practices, which probably will not be to the liking of the administration. As for the fee of 50,000 levs without VAT. Mr. Gantchev said that after taxes and deductions the amount becomes significantly less, and would be divided between a team of 7-8 highly skilled experts.
At the end of the day, there is still one more question to be answered – why do we having to write new rules and what is the problem with the old ones? It has been noted that the existing provisions are not sufficiently precise and consistent with the requirements of the law, which leads to the urgency of their amendment.
The BANKER
