The lowest price principle will no longer be the main criterion.
The new public procurement system will no longer take as the main criterion the lowest price, which will be replaced with the economically most advantageous price-quality ratio principle, it was announced at a conference organized by the Economy Ministry on the new public procurement system. It is expected that the government will adopt the draft law by late May, reports Poslovni.hr on April 28, 2016.
“The new Law on Public Procurement will greatly contribute to the changes we all want – that we have a new, modern, flexible law that will allow the new criteria. The lowest price, which has so far been the only criterion, disappears and that will enable us to stop seeking just the cheapest options, which might not meet the quality criteria”, said Economy Minister Tomislav Panenić.
With this legislative proposal, Croatian system will be aligned with three European directives, and Panenić pointed out that this was “one of the reform laws of the reform government”.
The new law will also no longer require that all companies applying for tenders have to collect a number of supporting documents. They will have to do it only if they are selected as a preferred bidder. “We have received a large number of complaints in this area, and this will certainly be welcomed by entrepreneurs. This will especially help small and medium sized companies which do not have special public procurement departments. It will no longer be acceptable that for as much as 40 percent of public procurement tenders there is only one bidder. This is a bad practice which opens a possibility for corruption and must be urgently changed”, said Panenić.
The Minister also pointed out that the European Commission claimed that countries which had so far introduced this form of public procurement procedure generated savings of between 5 and 20 percent of the value of public procurement.
