TIRANA, July 9 /ATA/-By Maela Marini/ – Prime Minister Edi Rama urged mayors Friday to carefully examine the new public procurement bill and warned them against involvement in public procurement processes, stating that the ruling Socialist Party (SP) and his government won’t provide them with political support if they are brought to justice.
“Don’t use your influence to favour anyone and don’t play with fire that is becoming increasingly scorching as the new justice bodies will enjoy my and the SP full support against anyone seeking to play with fire,” the government head said in his remarks at meeting with mayors to unveil the new public procurement package.
The Premier noted that the Public Procurement Agency has demanded that the procurement system is further reformed and a new package has been adopted and has already entered into force following a two-year hard work.
“The new package provides optimum premises to increase the system’s efficiency, significantly align national legislation with the EU legislation, ultimately addressing issues that have been encountered during the procurement processes. The new package aims to increase integrity and accountability of all parties involved as economic operators in this process, and it supports strengthening of monitoring and punitive mechanisms for any violations,” PM Rama added.
The government head focused on the problems encountered during the period January 2020-April 2021.
Rama noted that “1275 procedures announced by municipal institutions have been assisted by the Public Procurement Agency between January 2020 and April 2021.
“Public Procurement Agency provides its technical assistance to every contracting authority. It turns out that 88.5 % of the procedures have been problematic in terms of drafting the criteria and that’s why precise recommendations have been forwarded to the municipal authorities. 52.5 % of the municipalities haven’t responded at all and haven’t reflected regarding the technical recommendations from the Public Procurement Agency,” Rama said.
More than half of municipalities didn’t care to improve procedures in accordance with government recommendations, Rama informed.
“On the other hand, the investigation into the procedures implemented by the municipalities through the public procurement system has found that only one economic operator has taken part in tenders launched by 47 out of 67 municipalities, despite the procedure was theoretically open to everyone,” PM Rama said.
PM Rama stated according to an assessment by the Public Procurement Agency (APP) based on the Supreme State Audit during period from January 2020 through April 2021, the municipalities have violated legal requirements for public procurements, mainly being tailored for specific companies to win the bids and declaring companies and economic operators that fail to meet the qualification criteria as winners.
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