All costs made by state and municipal institutions for supplies, services or works became subject to new rules as of July 1. It is from this date that most notorious changes in the Public Procurement Law entered into force, which were adopted by the National Assembly at the end of April. In practice, the only new text, which began operating immediately after the promulgation of the norm more than two months ago, was associated with the recognition of future receivables under procurement contracts as collateral for lending.
Thanks to the most disputed innovation in the law – the so called in house tenders, mayors or ministers can now employ at their own discretion without competition subordinate companies for different purposes and to pay them as they wish. It is generally necessary experts from the Council of Ministers to write a methodology for pricing in these cases, but the whole enterprise seems absurd, because there is no way the construction of the an identical subject to have the same cost in Sofia, and in Yakorouda, for example. It will be quite interesting to see how one will apply the option to award contracts without tender and whether anyone would ever risk to take advantage of it?
Another important innovation that was implemented a few days ago is linked to guarantee for execution. Rather than the current 3% of the value, now what will be deducted is 5%. The change was made at the suggestion of a member of GERB Tomislav Donchev on the grounds that entities must be more protected in case they encounter setbacks and delays in project implementation.
As of 1 July the state has abolished the practice of setting limiting conditions for economic and technical capacity of the candidates in the form of the number of executed contracts, minimum annual turnover and respective restrictive conditions. Until recently it was through such techniques that entities underwent through preliminary sifting and the most public funds reached to only a certain range of businesses. Furthermore, all companies that have obligations under the Tax Procedure Code to the state or municipalities will not be able to participate in public procurement, unless they have an agreement on rescheduling or deferral of debts. Out of the game with public tenders remain companies convicted for breach of health and safety norms at work or the rights of workers.
Last but not least, as of July 1 the Public Procurement Act already covers the contracts of Prosecutor General and administrative heads of the prosecution in the country. Beforehand, they were not explicitly mentioned in the norm, and therefore did not have to hold public tenders for supplies and services.
Unfortunately everyone will have to wait – at least until October 1 – for some of the key changes related to increasing transparency in government spending to enter into force. However, in the forthcoming change of power their introduction may be delayed even further, and it is not excluded, they may completely be left out. And among them are the so called buyer’s profile, which is expected to bring out all the facts about the procedures for awarding contracts and the spending of billions. In the current regulatory framework the buyer profile is of desirable nature, which in Bulgarian institutions is understood more as undesirable nature. The proof of this is the fact that only a handful of agencies publish documents for auctions on the web, and most of them do not even report their implementation. Henceforth in this separate section on their websites entities will be required to include all papers relating to the conduct of the procurement and execution of contracts. Society will become aware also of the dates of release of guarantees of candidates, that state and municipal agencies in recent years went on to keep too long without any compensation for businesses.
