On Wednesday, March 29th, Institute Alternative organised the second meeting within the project ‘Procurement Under Spotlight – Making Watchdogs Work!’, supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Serbia and Montenegro, through the MATRA support programme.
Considering that during the first Network meeting, the issue of splitting procurement contracts to avoid open and transparent procedures was recognised by all relevant institutions and non-institutional actors, Institute Alternative prepared a detailed analysis of this problem for the second meeting.
The aim of the second meeting was to present the working version of IA’s analysis on the use of direct agreements in simplified procurement procedures, so that representatives of relevant institutional and non-institutional actors important for monitoring public procurement procedures could familiarise themselves with the findings, and for participants to exchange opinions and provide suggestions on the way towards the final version of the analysis.
The meeting was attended by 24 representatives of Montenegrin institutions, such as the Ministry of Finance, the Administration for Inspection Affairs, the High State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica, the Commission for the Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures, the Montenegrin Employers’ Union, the Special Police Department, the Chamber of Commerce of Montenegro, the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, as well as representatives of the media and non-governmental organisations.
In addition to discussing the specific findings of the analysis, the meeting also addressed inspection findings related to the irregularities noted in the analysis, as well as other irregularities in public procurement procedures. The published analysis ‘Direct Procurement Under Spotlight’ incorporated suggestions from the meeting participants.”
This meeting was produced within the Project “Procurement under spotlight – Making Watchdogs Work!”, with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Serbia and Montenegro within the MATRA Rule of Law program. Project aims to empower and motivate watchdogs to combat corruption and undue influence in public procurement.
