Public Procurement (MK0073)
Overview
At-a-Glance
Action Plan: Macedonia, Second Action Plan, 2014-2016
Action Plan Cycle: 2014
Status:
Institutions
Lead Institution: Ministry of Finance
Support Institution(s): All institutions (in consultation with the Bureau for Public Procurement)
Policy Areas
Anti Corruption and Integrity, Public ProcurementIRM Review
IRM Report: Macedonia End-of-Term Report 2014-2016, Macedonia Progress Report 2014-2015
Early Results: Marginal
Design i
Verifiable: Yes
Relevant to OGP Values: Yes
Ambition (see definition): High
Implementation i
Description
Public procurement
IRM End of Term Status Summary
XIII. Transparency: Public Procurement (✪)
Commitment 5.2: Public Procurement (✪)
Commitment Text: 5.2. Public procurement: Recommendation for publication of annual procurement plans, contracts on public procurements and notifications on realized public procurement contract; Development and application of standards on transparency with a list of minimum information to be published by each institution that conducts public procurement to ensure a certain level of transparency in line with the good practices, on the websites of the contracting authorities.
Responsible institution(s): Ministry of Finance
Supporting institution(s): All institutions (in cosultation with the Bureau of Public Procurement)
Start Date: 1/1/2015 End Date: 31/12/2016
Editorial Note: This is a starred commitment, because it is measurable, clearly relevant to OGP values as written, of transformative potential impact, and was substantially or completely implemented.
Commitment aim
This commitment sets out to ensure greater transparency in public procurement procedures and to bring the data closer to the public, by defining standards for proactive release of information by all institutions with public contracts.
Status
Midterm: Limited
There was little progress on this commitment at the midterm because implementation only began at the end of June 2015. A search of the web platforms of ministries and the Internet revealed that national authorities rarely publish and/or update procurement plans. Local institutions are more proactive in publishing their procurement information.
For more information, please see the 2014-2016 IRM midterm report.
End of term: Substantial
The Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), in cooperation with the Center for Civic Communications (the OGP working group on anti-corruption) and relevant institutions, developed a list and recommendations for release of information by public procurers.[Note 116: Bureau for Public Procurement, Annual Report for the Work in 2015, (Skopje: 2016), available at: http://bit.ly/2dqWCgy [in Macedonian].] By the end of the implementation period, the BPP had adopted the list of minimum standards, and sent out recommendations to push for release.
These recommendations centered on publicising any amendments to the annual plan for public procuring, publishing open calls for procurement, and providing a link to the BPP’s website, where detailed information could be obtained. The BPP also recommended publishing announcements of all contracts and notices for completed and closed contracts. These suggestions aligned with the requests of civil society, whose main concern was to make subsequent stages of procurement and realisation of contracts more transparent proactively (public information was available at the bidding stage of procurements).
The government self-assessment report considered this commitment completed, since the minimum standards and recommendations for proactive disclosure by individual authorities were adopted and disseminated to all responsible authorities. Apart from the initial dissemination of the recommendations, no further efforts were made by the government to promote this commitment’s implementation.
Did it open government?
Access to information: Marginal
The BPP has a sophisticated e-procurement system[Note 117: https://e-nabavki.gov.mk/PublicAccess/Home.aspx#/home.] that publishes data on procurements. Commitment 5.2 reflected[Note 118: Center for Civic Communications, Recommendations to Facilitate the Access to Public Procurement by Microbusinesses (Skopje: CCC, 2015-second revised edition), 13, available at: http://bit.ly/1WJMNpA.] civil society’s[Note 119: The Center for Civic Communications, the leading civil society organization on procurement transparency, has published quarterly reports since 2008, and implements various projects to provide information on procurements, to stimulate investigative journalism in this area, and to provide legal aid and consultations for micro and small enterprises in procurement procedure.] main concerns, which were to improve mechanism to curb corruption[Note 120: EC, Annual Progress Reports for 2014, 11.] in public spending by proactively releasing more data on the websites of public institutions. Since the sophisticated e-procurement system is too technical, the government sought to bring the data closer to the public, as well as increase the scope of the available information. While the commitment was completed, it only offers non-binding recommendations for transparency, which were not implemented by most of the authorities.
Civil society monitoring revealed that there was an initial wave of disclosures following the recommendation by the Bureau, but access to procurement data and spending is still limited.[Note 121: German Filkov, Sabina Fakic, and Marko Mitevski, Index of Active Transparency 2016, (Skopje: Center for Civic Communication, 2016), 12 [available at: http://bit.ly/2dumzw6, in Macedonian].] For example, annexes to contracts, as well as actual payments from procurement contracts, are not routinely available. Additionally, available data are compartmentalised by procurement body and contracts and, so, not easily searchable or comparable. This led civil society to design additional portals (e.g., http://www.opendata.mk) to make such data available. The IRM researcher views this as a step in the right direction, but as implementation of the recommendation is still very limited, it only marginally improved government practice of disclosing public spending information.
Carried forward?
The new national action plan builds on this commitment and pledges to make publishing procurement data a statutory obligation (new commitment 5.3). This is designed to ensure that institutions comply and extend the amount of data available on their websites.