Source: Politika
The deadline passed back in July 2009, and the members of the commission have not been suggested to this very day
Rodoljub Sabic,
Commissioner for Information
The ugly truth that the fight against corruption is a topic where the gap between the normative and the real is probably best seen has, unfortunately, been confirmed by another example – postponement of implementation of the solutions from the ‘’new’’ Law on Public Procurements. And the ‘’new’’ Law, which was at the time of its adoption deemed a very important contribution to anticorruption efforts, actually is not new anymore. It came into effect in January last year.
It stipulates that, instead of the Commission for Protection of Rights with the Public Procurement Office, whose members were inaugurated by the Government, the protection of the tenderers’ rights would be performed by a special, independent and autonomous public authority – Republic Commission for the Protection of Rights, whose members would be elected by the National Assembly. It was stipulated that the Republic Commission would be elected within the period of six months from the day of the coming into effect of the Law. The deadline passed back in July 2009, and the members of the Commission have not been suggested to this very day. No resources for its operation have been envisaged in the 2010 Budget, and the Commission, as an existing body, has not been mentioned in the Decision on the Maximum Number of Employees in the State Administration Bodies either. The number of employees in the Public Procurement Office has been lowered to 20 by the Decision, so it is not realistic for the Office to be able to provide the Commission with appropriate logistic and personnel support.For example, the Agency for Public Procurement of Albania has 36, Hungary 82 and Slovakia 110 employees. The problem of the Commission’s (not operating) operation is by no means abstract but perfectly real. As there is an obligation unto the contracting authorities to cease all their activities immediately once they have submitted a request for protection of rights, such situation presents a real threat from extremely harmful economic effects. The cessation, partial or complete blockage of these activities is literally dangerous to their existence. In the logic of interest and necessity, that fact must have a very simulative effect on deciding on various corrupted ‘’solutions’’.
It is interesting that, at the proposal of the Ministry of Finance, in September last year, the Government has removed from office a number of the members of the Commission and appointed a new president and two new members. This has been done with reference to Paragraph 2 of Article 125 of the Law on Public Procurements, which stipulates that from the day of coming into effect of the Law, the Commission for the Protection of Rights shall continue its operations until the new Republic Commission begins its work. The problem is, however, in the fact that the issue of continuation of work of the old Commission is completely different from the issue of the change of its membership structure. When the new Law on Public Procurement came into effect, the provisions of the old Law, which were the basis for the Government’s power to name the President and the members of the Commission, clearly became null and void (Art. 126), and the provisions of the new Law empowering the Government to propose them to the National Assembly came into effect. Is the decision making authority in the procedure for protection of rights in public procurements worth thousands of millions of Euros, an authority of (un)lawful composition? Are all the decisions of the said authority, which it has been passing for months now, to say the least ‘’under suspicion’’ of being completely null and void?
Anti corruption activities, in addition to other things, even with regards to the process of European integrations are of exceptional significance. In that context one should not forget that, at one point, the European Commission praised the institutional autonomy of the Commission for the Protection of Rights. Only, it was happening at the time when the said ‘’autonomy’’ was defined by law, so in 2008. Is it a problem to predict the extent of ‘’benevolence’’ with which our EU partners will view the fact that the entire 2009 was skipped, and that in this year the ‘’new’’ position of the Commission will be nothing but letters on a piece of paper? ‘’The case’’ of the Law on Public Procurements is not a single isolated case. Examples of similar ‘’forgetfulness’’ are often repeated, sometimes in tragicomic form. It is unrealistic to expect a plebiscitary form of fight against corruption to be confirmed with results in practice unless such practice is discontinued. Consequential anti corruption results are achievable only if professional and political responsibilities are promoted, and ‘’forgetfulness’’ completely eliminated.
