A regulation for procurements could help standardize and centralize them using ministries involved, for example, said Latvian Economy Minister Ralfs Nemiro.
The minister described his idea using the purchase of a school bus as an example. It is not the same as a municipality purchasing one of two buses. Instead the procurement is performed by a responsible ministry, which immediately procures several hundred buses. Nemiro is confident that the state would be able to receive better price offers and thereby save money.
He also believes centralized procurements would help reduce bureaucracy – a process performed by every municipality separately could be performed by experienced professionals of responsible ministries.
Nemiro denies this could create corruption threats – teams of committees will be wider and supervision will be stricter.
Additionally, in regards to the construction cartel scandal, Nemiro mentioned that it was necessary to supervise companies that regularly inflated prices after winning in tenders. This way organizers of tenders would be able to avoid outsourcing services.
Nemiro also proposes adopting a rotation principle.
The minister does not exclude the possibility of organizing tenders in two languages – the fact that the text of the tender is written in Latvian language does not prevent its translation into other languages.
If the government supports economy minister’s idea, Nemiro expects changes could come to force next year. (BNN/Business World Magazine)