On April 2, Sergey Shahnazaryan, Head of Procurement Policy Department of the RA Ministry of Finance, presented the changes in the system of public procurement.
The Ministry of Finance has initiated a review process of procurement legislation and expects active participation of business representatives and civil society in the changes to be made. “Our goal is to apply the principles of “value in return for money; effective procurement free from corruption” in the system of public procurement “, - said Shahnazaryan.
The Ministry of Finance is open for cooperation in terms of envisaged changes in the sphere of procurement and calls on interested parties to submit their proposals for making changes to legislative acts. On the basis of diagnosed problems, the sub-legislative regulations of procurement sphere were also posted on e-draft.am website for public discussion.
The proposed sub-legislative regulations envisage providing economic entities with overdue tax obligations with an opportunity of not staying out of the process by paying debts. It also proposes to eliminate the limitation of the participation of organizations with credit obligations, not to overburden the economic entities with formal requirements. Changes have also been made regarding the threshold of participation: previously, an opportunity of up to AMD 5 million was given to the businessman to participate in any public procurement without any criteria. Now it is envisaged to raise this threshold to 10 million.
Touching upon the compulsory publication of the information on procurement by the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union in Russian, the Head of Department noted that the change relates to the procurement procedures starting on March 25, 2019. It is not difficult for customers as part of the invitation to tender is static information, and a few variable data is only required. Technical specification is translated into Russian.