Online Broadcasting of the State Procurement Appeals Board Sessions (AM0020)

Ensuring transparency of Procurement Appeals Board decision-making. The monitoring results of the organization certify that the decisions of the Procurement Appeals in many occasions give way to concerns, to address which only making them public is not enough, and it is also necessary to indicate how they were adopted during the board sessions

5. Broadcasting State Procurement Appeals Board sessions

Commitment Text:

The monitoring results of the organization certify that the decisions of the Procurement Appeals in many occasions give way to concerns, to address which, only making them public is not enough, and it is also necessary to indicate how they were adopted during the board sessions.

Responsible Institution: The Staff of the Government of the Republic of Armenia

Supporting Institution(s): None

Start Date: May 2014 ...........                                                             ............. End Date: June 2015

Commitment Aim

The goal of this commitment is to make the Procurement Appeals Boards decisions transparent and publicly accessible. Ensuring transparency of the decision-making process could help increase public trust towards procurement system.

Status

Midterm: Complete

As of June 2015, Procurement Appeals Board sessions are regularly broadcasted online  ^{“Electronic Government of the Republic of Armenia”, e-gov.am, accessed June 12, 2017, https://www.e-gov.am/en/}

Did it Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

Often, the decisions of the Procurement Appeals Boards were not transparent and did not properly address the concerns of parties presenting appeals. According to the Government, due to online broadcasting of sessions of Procurement Appeals Board, the number of appeals increased significantly. According to Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) monitoring report ^{TIAC Report on monitoring of public procurments during 2015 and 2016 is available in Armenian at http://bit.ly/2sVJ2GP.}  , in first half of 2016, 69 appeals were forwarded, compared to 54 in 2015 and 48 in 2014. In 2016, 32 appeals received positive answers (24 in 2015 and 22 in 2014). TIAC report also noted that the State Procurement Appeals Board is demonstrating changes towards more accountability. However, the quality and completeness of online broadcasting needs to improve. TIAC report mentions the cases of unauthorized individuals participating in investigations of complaints. As highlighted in the midterm progress report published by OGP IRM, online broadcasting of sessions of Appeals Board are short and in some cases, are even limited to reading board’s decisions without providing relevant details. Consequently, there are justified concerns that the part of the commitment, related to method of adopting decisions (that is, how the decisions were adopted during the Board session – as specified in the action plan), can be improved further.

Carried Forward?

The commitment is not included in the next action plan.