The draft law for amending and supplementing the Law on Public Procurement, after a shortened procedure, reached the agenda of yesterday's parliamentary session. The platform of civil organizations for the fight against corruption demands that the legal amendments be stopped immediately because, according to them, the administrative control of public procurements carried out by the Public Procurement Bureau is abolished, and this represents a serious setback in the protection against corruption.

Civil activists also react to the fact that with this legal decision, the way is opened to dissolve the State Commission for Complaints after Public Procurement and to elect a new one by the new parliamentary majority.

"At the proposal of the Commission for Elections and Appointments, the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia publishes a public announcement for the appointment of the president and members of the State Commission for Complaints on Public Procurement within five days from the date of entry into force of this law", it says in the proposed changes.

The legal amendments were proposed by a group of MPs: Aleksandar Yamalov, Antonijo Miloshoski, Bojan Stojanoski, Dragana Bojkovska, Zorancho Jovanchev, Igor Zdravkovski, Ljupcho Prendzov, and according to them, the main purpose of the amendments is precisely to strengthen control and greater transparency. "The main goal of the proposed law is to foresee measures for achieving the activities of the Reform Agenda within the framework of the Growth Plan for the countries of the Western Balkans, as well as strengthening the capacity and independence of the State Commission for Complaints after Public Procurement and improving administrative control which will be an administrative check", it is written in the draft law.

The proponent's arguments

Antonio Miloshoski in a statement for "Sloboden Pechat" says that they do not think that the previous legal solution was bad, but together with experts from the Public Procurement Bureau, they realized that there are omissions and weaknesses and that it could be better. He confirms that the focus of this legal solution is the State Commission for Public Procurement Complaints, which should be at the top of the institutional set-up.

- With the reform that we want to do, we want to make a greater specification of the competences of the State Commission for Public Procurement and the Bureau for Public Procurement. We saw that the State Commission for Public Procurement Complaints was not corrective where it should have been. Our goal is for it to become corrective in the process of managing state finances when it comes to public procurement, which means having greater responsibility and authority, and the number will increase by two additional members so that there are no excuses that they do not have sufficient capacity - says Miloshoski.

He says that with the regulation, the competences of the Public Procurement Bureau will be specified.

- And in relation to the Public Procurement Bureau, there should be further clarification so that there are no overlaps and no excuses as to who should and who should not have acted. The State Commission should have primacy in determining the methodology for what is correct and legal in relation to public procurement. Until now, we have had cases where, for the same case of public procurement, the state audit has one opinion, the Bureau of Public Procurement has a second opinion, and the State Commission for Public Procurement Complaints can have a third opinion because they worked according to different methods, observations or protocols. With these changes, we believe that the State Commission should be at the top of the hierarchy - Milososki explained.

He says that so far there have been banal examples when appeals were rejected, for example due to non-payment of an administrative fee, without giving a deadline to remove this "administrative deficiency".

Civic organizations react to an intrusion into an institution

The platform of civil organizations for the fight against corruption publicly asks why (even though the proposal was already withdrawn once) the termination of the mandates of the president and the members of the State Commission for Complaints after Public Procurement is once again foreseen, without the conditions for dismissal being met and without any to be public consultations.

"Such an intrusion into the work of the institutions, which according to their model should be independent from the central government, represents a dangerous precedent and leads to additional partisanship of the institutions," writes the Platform.

Civil organizations believe that the moment when these and a series of other changes in the Law are being proposed is particularly worrying, i.e. "with the historically highest budget, new debts and daily indications of misuse of public money".

- In case of any intention to amend the legislation in the field of public procurement, we insist on organizing a consultative process in which all competent institutions will participate, such as the Public Procurement Bureau, the State Commission for Public Procurement Complaints, the Ministry of Finance, the State Commission for prevention of corruption and civil organizations that work on anti-corruption issues. We point out again that the practice of adopting legal amendments in a shortened procedure, without a consultative process, especially for solutions that may negatively affect the fight against corruption, is unacceptable and contrary to European commitments for democratic, inclusive and expert creation of public policies - say the Platform .

To our question as to why the legal amendments are brought after an abbreviated procedure, Milososki says that it is possible to have a supervisory hearing, but at a different stage.

- Badijala, we will make legal changes if they are not implemented. The biggest problem so far has been the implementation. We should not allow the law to be circumvented. Therefore, I say that a supervisory hearing would be more important than a public hearing, and we do not rule out the possibility of holding it with the Bureau of Public Procurement, the State Audit, the State Appeals Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission to talk about the implementation of the law - says Miloshoski.

According to a report by the Center for Civic Communications, public procurement in 2023 reached a record high value and a record low competition in the last 10 years. In 2023, public procurement contracts worth 92 billion denars, i.e. about 1,5 billion euros, were concluded, which is 35 percent more than the previous year. The increased value of purchases is followed by the deterioration of competition in tenders. The average number of offers per tender is 2,7. In one third of the tenders, only one bid was received