A meeting with the representatives of non-governmental organizations led by the RA Minister of Finance Vardan Aramyan took place at the RA Ministry of Finance, during which the actions and measures implemented by the RA Ministry of Finance in 2017, as well as those to be implemented in 2018 aimed at making procurement procedures simpler and more transparent and organizing them on competitive and non-discriminatory basis were presented and discussed. The RA Deputy Minister of Finance Karen Tamazyan was also present at the meeting.
Minister Aramyan noted that such close cooperation between the Ministry and civil society is very important: the Ministry attaches great importance to their involvement in the procurement reform process. “If previously the average participation rate in the procurement process was 3.2, now it is 4.2; and there is no fictitious participation in that indicator. We have quite good results. Your contribution here is also great. We should make joint efforts to do the right things with the right tools”, - said the Minister.
Sergey Shahnazaryan, Head of Public Finance Management Methodology Department, underlined that in the course of 2017, the Ministry gave about 400 clarifications to the procurement participants, as well as in 2017 the RA Ministry of Finance conducted trainings for about a thousand qualified procurement coordinators taking into consideration the legislative changes.
Particularly, it was touched upon the amendments to the RA Government Decision N 526-N “On Organizing Procurement Process”, the draft of which was publicly discussed at the unified website of draft legal acts (e-draf.am). The problems that arose during the implementation of procurement legislation were discussed, and the process of making amendments to the above-mentioned decision was initiated to resolve them. Based on the results of the discussion, an agreement was reached on holding regular workshops to summarize the problems.
In the course of the discussion, the parties highlighted the functional and institutional changes implemented in the system aimed at clarifying organization terms of procurement procedures, raising the competition level, expanding the e-procurement system, and forming an independent and effective form of extradition appeal.
At the end of the meeting, Minister Vardan Aramyan expressed satisfaction with the NGOs participating in the discussions for their initiatives and cooperation.
