NALED: In Serbia, Each Third Citizen Familiar with Public Procurement System

Each third citizen in Serbia is familiar with the system of public procurement procedures, which is less than a year ago, and the share of those who primarily inform themselves through TV program has grown to over 50%, announced the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED).

As shown by the survey of the opinions of citizens, suppliers and procuring entities which, for the needs of NALED, was carried out by the Ipsos agency, this is followed by getting information about public procurement procedures through social networks and portals, and when it comes to the veracity of data, they still believe the ministries the most. Slightly over half the citizens believe that the system of public procurement procedures in Serbia is good, but the share of suppliers which don’t take part in them, because they don’t believe that the procedure will be fair and transparent, has increased to 42%.

Also, the bidders which, in the past three years, have taken part in tenders more frequently than those which haven’t, estimate that procurement procedures in Serbia are transparent and in line with the law. According to the executive director of NALED, Violeta Jovanovic, the only way for the system to be essentially improved and to build trust are concrete measures which will make it equal for everybody, such as the full implementation of the new law, through training for the work on the portal and the application of the criterion of the economically most favorable bid.

– The data of the Office for Public Procurement Procedures show that, in 96% of the procurement procedures, the lowest price decides the selection of the best bid, and the survey shows that the procuring entities consider the application of other criteria risky – they lack models of contest documentation according to which they would work, and that makes it too demanding for them to set and evaluate criteria of quality – Jovanovic pointed out at the conference within the project “Public Procurement and Good Management for Improved Competitiveness”, which NALED carries out in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

She added that additional training was needed in order to perfect and prepare the models by which the criteria could be set and used. This year as well, healthcare is the priority field in which, according to the opinion of 77% of the citizens, the most money should be invested through public procurement procedures, followed by education (53%), infrastructure and roads (36%) and environmental protection (31%). The biggest increase is recorded in valuing ecological questions, whereas the interest in energy has dropped, which, as assessed at the gathering, could be related to the presence of these topics in the media in the past year.

– The citizens of Serbia are obviously very interested in what the money from the budget will be spent on and they have an opinion about what the priorities are, but they should be enabled to have where to say it, to take part in the consultations when plans are made – said the program director of Transparency Serbia, Nemanja Nenadic.

Nenadic estimated that procuring entities were “bothered” by the lack of competition and that what turned away suppliers from taking part in tenders was the lack of trust that the procurement procedures would be lawful and fair. As he said, that is a guideline for what needs to be done for the competition to increase – state organs should control a considerably higher number of cases in which there are suspicions that the procurement procedure is rigged and share with the public immediately what they determine in that process. Nenadic emphasized that the survey had shown that as many as 94% of the citizens believed that public procurement procedures should be strictly controlled.

NALED Beograd

Transparentnost Srbija Beograd

National Alliance for Local Economic Development

NALED

Office for Public Procurement Procedures

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Sida

Nemanja Nenadić

Violeta Jovanović

public procurement procedures

social networks

tenders

portals