Public Procurement in Albania

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PUBLIC PROCUREMENT AGENCY

• Public Procurement in Albania
• in the framework of recent reforms

2
Priorities of reforms

• Regulatory framework
• increasing of full transparency and consolidation
  of electronic services
• strengthening of human capacities of contracting
  authorities with regard to the correct
  understanding and implementation of legislation.

3
Current Status

• Legal framework
• Law no. 9643 of 20.11.2006 On public
  procurement, as amended
• Council of Ministers Decision no. 1 of 10.1.2007
  On public procurement regulations, as amended
• Council of Ministers Decision No. 659, dated
  03.10.2007 On the approval of public procurement
  regulations with electronic means
• Council of Ministers Decision no. 45 of 21.1.2009
  On the performance of public procurement
  procedures with electronic means.

4
Legal framework

• The Albanian legislation on public procurement
  includes the basic principles of acquis
  communautaire
• non discrimination and equality of treatment for
  economic operators
• transparency of procurement procedures
• proportionality of requirements and obligations
  imposed to economic operators.

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Recent important amendments to the legal
framework on public procurement include

• Introduction of a new review body, Public
  Procurement Commission
• A specific chapter for public procurement in
  utilities sectors (water, energy, transport and
  postal services)
• Framework Agreements.

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Public Procurement Commission

• A collegial review body, composed of 5 members
• Under the dependence of the Council of Ministers
• Dealing exclusively with the complaints of
  economic operators
• Its decisions are administratively final
• The possibility of their appeal to the Court.

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Utilities sectors

• Specific provisions for the utilities sectors
  were added to the law on public procurement
  (9643/2006, as amended).
• These provisions determine the rules and the
  applicable procedures for procuring the public
  contracts in the sectors of water, energy,
  transport and postal services.
• The provisions of the law, which regulate public
  procurement in the utilities sectors, are
  compiled in compliance with the Directive
  2004/17/EC on coordinating the procurement
  procedures of entities operating in the water,
  energy, transport and postal services sectors.

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Framework Agreements

• Procedures for signing framework agreements are
  foreseen for the first time in the law on public
  procurement, and in compliance with respective EU
  law.
• Main advantage for using framework agreements
  reduction of administrative costs and public
  finances.

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Electronic procurement system (www.app.gov.al)

• A big reform towards improvement and evolution of
  public procurement system
• The system of the e-procurements system was
  created with the assistance and support of the
  Millennium Challenge Albanian Threshold
  Agreement, administered by USAID.
• Since 2009, Albania is using 100 electronic
  procurement. (By  Decision  45  of  21  January
  2009,  the  Council  of  Ministers  mandated  the
  use of  electronic  procurement  for  all
  procedures)

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E-procurement system

• The e-procurement system ensures
• Security of system
• - Integrity
• - Confidentiality
• Protection of transmitted data
• The possibility to look into the content of
  offers and of requests for participation only
  after the deadline for their submission.

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E-procurement system (cont)

• The right of access in the system
• Only authorized persons can set or change
  deadlines of offers and requests for
  participations disclosure
• The access in tender offers and requests is
  possible only by authorized personnel, through
  synchronized actions
• The system automatically generates a summary
  report, which includes all the phases of a tender
  procedure.

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Advantages of e-procurement

• The e-procurement is mainly an important step
  towards full transparency and the fight against
  corruption. It, inter alia, provides
• costs reduction
• increasing number of bidders in electronic
  procedures
• higher competition
• increasing number of documents downloaded from
  the PPA website
• avoidance of bureaucratic procedures
• improvement of services delivery
• closer cooperation among institutions

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Improvements in the e-Procurement System

• Drafting of new manuals for all users of the
  Electronic Procurement System and for each role
  that they have in the procurement process and
  Improvement of the Public Procurement Agency
  official website, which is enriched with updated
  information.
• Public Procurement Agency created the CA
  Administrator for each of the CA-s, which
  facilitates the management of the internal users
  accounts of the CA within the e-Procurement
  System.
• The members of the Complaints Review Commission
  and those of Auditing already can now
  electronically conduct the auditing of a specific
  procurement procedure. This leads to avoiding of
  problems, which were generated by the delays of
  hard copy communication.

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Improvements in the e-Procurement System (cont)

• Continuous improvement of the Information
  Technology infrastructure (ex increasing of
  hardware capacities, improvement of security,
  etc) by providing good working conditions for all
  online users of the Electronic Procurement
  System.
• Detailed studies concerning the separation of the
  e-Procurement archive from the operational
  database and optimization of the latter.
• During 2010, the Information Technology
  Directorate started electronic archiving of
  procedures, which were conducted in 2008 and
  2009. These procedures are saved in another
  Archive server in order to facilitate the
  operational database, to provide a higher quality
  service and to enhance the speed of finding the
  data and the efficiency of the electronic
  procedures in the public procurement system.

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Second-place winner

• Public Procurement Agency was the second-place
  winner of the 2010 United Nations Public Services
  Award in the category of Improving transparency,
  accountability and responsiveness in the Public
  Service, because of the results achieved by the
  implementation of the e-procurement system.

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External Support

• IPA Program 2008 twinning project Support for
  the strengthening of the Albanian Public
  Procurement, Concessions and Public Auctions
  systems.
• Overall objective to assist Albania in achieving
  EU standards as required under the SAA, in the
  areas of public procurement, concessions and
  public auctions.
• Duration 15 months (November 2010 January
  2012)

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IPA Twinning Project

• 3 components
• Legal and institutional reform
• Capacity building for the stakeholders dealing
  with public procurement
• Communication regarding the public procurement
  field.

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External Support (cont)

• PPA is also currently being assisted by the EBRD
  project on Utilities public procurement reform.
• Objective of the project
• to provide assistance with the development and
  implementation of the utilities sector public
  procurement policy, by drafting secondary or
  tertiary legislation and supporting practical
  implementation of this legal framework
• preparation of tertiary legislation on
  implementing Framework Agreements, and capacity
  building assistance on this regard
• Assistance on improvements of e-procurement
  system
• Duration of this project 6 months

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Main challenges and priorities in progress

• Well-implementation of public procurement
  legislation, especially with regard to the newly
  regulated utilities sectors.
• Taking steps in order to bring the PPL fully up
  to EU standards.
• Continuous strengthening of institutional
  capacities (central and local government),
  dealing with public procurement.
• Wider awareness and knowledge on public
  procurement among contracting authorities,
  economic operators and the wider public.
• Further enhancement of the e-procurement system.

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THANK YOU!

• https//www.app.gov.al