Month: June 2024

On Monday, June 3, Institute alternative organised the third meeting of the Public Procurement Watchdogs Network, where participants were presented with a new section of the Moj novac portal dedicated to public procurement.

The meeting was organised within the project “Public procurement under spotlight – Making Watchdogs Work!”, which IA conducts with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Serbia and Montenegro within the MATRA Rule of Law program.

The meeting was attended by 20 representatives from various institutions: the Ministry of Finance, the Commission for the Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures, the State Audit Institution, the Administration for Inspection Affairs, the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, the Higher State Prosecutor’s Office, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare.

Dragana Jaćimović, a public policy researcher at the Institute Alternative, presented the new section of the Moj novac portal, which represents an easily searchable public procurement database, for the period of the past three years. This database enables us to see who receives money through public procurement, with whom the state most frequently concludes contracts, and which enterprises have received money for goods, services, and works over the past three years.

We demonstrated all the functionalities of the portal to the meeting participants, including the ability to search for contracting authorities and bidders by name or tax identification number (TIN), review all contracts, and access statistical data on concluded contracts in relation to the procurement subject and type of procedure. Additionally, we integrated the portal with the Electronic public procurement system (CEJN) portal, allowing users to review the entire procurement process from tender announcement to contract conclusion with a single click via CEJN.

Following the presentation, members of the Public Procurement Guardians Network had several questions regarding the functionality and method of searching for information on the mojnovac.me portal. Participants emphasised the contribution of such a portal to the work of institutions, noting that it offers functionalities not provided by the public procurement portal through which procedures are conducted.

Project Public procurements under spotlight – Making Watchdogs Work! aims to to empower and motivate watchdogs to combat corruption and undue influence in public procurement. The project specifically aims to enhance dialogue on corruption in public procurement and to encourage institutional response to corruption, as well as to influence debate on public procurement policy and legislation.

While awaiting the report from the public hearing, we highlight important suggestions we submitted to the Ministry of Public Administration on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees.

In light of announcements of more complex amendments, we limited our suggestions to the current scope of changes, although we believe that a fundamental reform in this area is necessary to address numerous priorities: from the inappropriately narrow scope of regulations regarding civil servants and state employees, to the scope of human resource planning and transparency in job allocation and filling.

We regret to note that our active contribution within the working group has not been valued, given that we received no feedback on previously submitted comments, despite the general assessment that they were “constructive comments.” Furthermore, there was no explanation for the minimal duration of the public hearing, without holding a round table, for which we were also left without in the working group.

We submitted a total of ten suggestions with comprehensive explanations, based on decades of research and monitoring.

Regarding the norms regulating experience for leadership positions, it is necessary to add a norm that specifies that such experience is proven by reviewing the previous relevant employment contract. Additionally, to strengthen inspection oversight, which is a greatly neglected area, we suggest the necessity of enhancing the analytical capacities of inspection bodies, which are currently exceptionally weak. Such a norm would allow individuals who have performed the most complex inspection oversight tasks to contribute in the same area where they possess relevant experience.

Regarding the provision regulating the status of employees in the Administrative Centre, whose establishment is foreseen through amendments of mentioned law, we believe that employees in this institution should not be exempt from the application of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, especially since it plays a significant role in setting an example in this area.

The narrow scope of regulations regarding civil servants and state employees is one of the main issues in public administration employment, which is further complicated by such provisions. We remind that even agencies, with full implementation, apart from a few, should apply the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, while this Law is already applied to employees in the Ombudsman Institution and the State Audit Institution. The explanation that state commissions would be in a conflict of interest while reviewing complaints or procedures against employees in this institution simply does not hold, as such a broad interpretation could extend to relations with other institutions.

We also suggested that the Law, in principle, should prescribe criteria for assessing unprofessional and negligent performance of duties, which would be further elaborated by a by-law, in relation to the dismissals of members of state commissions that occurred for these reasons. In the articles relating to the appointment of members of state commissions, one of the conditions for appointment should be that the candidate cannot be a member of a political party.