MPs adopt public procurement bill / Photo from UNIAN
The Verkhovna Rada adopted in the second reading and in general the draft law on amendments to some legislative acts on public procurement, improving the mechanism of public procurement, which amounts to about $300 billion per year.
"Submitting the bill to consideration in the second reading, the Committee requested not to exclude the monitoring system of public procurement from the procurement system, but transfer it under the supervision of the State Financial Inspection. The Committee also proposed to increase the threshold for procurement from $1.2 million to $1.5 million due to the rise in prices, including the construction and installation work," said deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Policy, Yuriy Solovyov while introducing the bill.
According to Solovyov, 64 amendments were proposed to the bill ahead of the second reading, and most of them were taken into account.
Read alsoSuccessful public procurement reforms needed to help Ukraine tackle corruptionMinister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Aivaras Abromavicius, who attended the voting, said that the document is extremely important, and it is included in the total package of procurement sector reforms, which will be continued in October.
"This is a very important law, it is a real opportunity to save $50 billion a year,” said Abromavicius. “The reform of public procurement is based on two bills. One has been passed, the second will be submitted in October. It regards the issue of transferring all public procurement into an electronic framework," the minister said.
He stressed that the reform of public procurement affects a lot of business interests. "I see what kind of political battles you have here; but it proves that, regardless of political affiliation, there are things that are supported by everyone,” the minister said. “With your help, with the help of non-governmental organizations, whom we have developed a bill with, we will tackle corruption in public procurement and corruption in the state-owned enterprises."
As UNIAN reported earlier, the draft law was adopted in the first reading on June 30 of this year. At the same time the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade announced its intention to transfer all government procurement, except for defense and other specific purchases, in electronic format until the end of 2016. The system of electronic procurement will be built by combining the infrastructure of the Prozorro volunteer project on the transparency of public procurement and the portal of SOE Vneshtorgizdat.