BRATISLAVA January 27 (WEBNOVINY) — Companies’ participation in public procurement intensified last year and the state achieved higher savings than in previous years. Non-governmental organization Transparency International Slovensko (TIS) informed the SITA news agency on Friday that purchases with sole bidder shrank from 47 percent to 38 percent of all tenders over the past three years while on the other hand the volume of procurement with at least five bidders increased from one tenth to one fifth. The average saving compared with the expected price amounted to 14 percent last year compared with only 5 percent in 2009, according to the TIS analysis of the quality of public procurement in 2009-2011.
“While in 2009, 2.3 companies enrolled in the public procurement, it was 3.6 applicants last year. Higher engagement of companies in tenders positively affected the quality and advantageousness of offers. Slovakia has thus reduced its lagging behind EU countries, where five suppliers participate in public tenders on average, by half,” said Director of TIS Gabriel Sipos. He attributes increased competitiveness and more advantageous offers to mainly implementation of electronic auctions on a grand scale and tighter procedure in restricted tenders, besides economic crisis. In the second half of last year, electronic auction was applied in one in four tenders compared with one in 140 tenders in 2009. Last year’s study of TIS showed that savings in auctions doubled compared with procurement using the traditional one-round method. The public sector assigned orders worth EUR 2.5 billion last year.
SITA