site.btaMajor Public Procurements Discontinued over Transparency Doubts, to Be Contracted under New Law

Major Public Procurements Discontinued over Transparency Doubts, to Be Contracted under New Law

Sofia, February 17 (BTA) - Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has ordered that all major public procurements be stopped and be contracted under a recently adopted new law. This was announced to the press by Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov after the weekly meeting of the government on Wednesday. "The aim is to dispel all suspicions about something intransparent or a backstage deal which will result in the spending of large amounts of public resources," said Goranov.

Among the cancelled public procurements he mentioned is one for construction of forestry infrastrcture and roads for a total of 95 million leva in the territory of the Southwestern State Forestry Company.

The government press office quoted the Prime Minister as saying about the discontinued forestry road procedure at the government meeting that he wants no grain of doubt about the transparency of these contracts. "I want clear and transparent rules," he said adding that this was his message to everybody. He said that more publicity will be given to these matters, if needed, so that people can rest assured that taxpayers' money is spent in the right way.

The Finance Minister further said that the possible halting of several framework orders is being contemplated, and the idea is that all large procurements that might be of broad public interest, be re-contracted in keeping with the new law with clear and transparent rules, so as to eliminate all suspicions in respect of the transparency of such contracts, to make sure that the public interest be protected and achieve the best price for the available resources, said the Finance Minister.

He also said that several large public procurements in Varna "will be discussed".

A large public procurement contract for the production of IDs will be "structured in a new way", said the Minister. He explained that lots of equipment is about to be made redundant at the central bank's printing works and a new company will be set up, first under the Finance Minister and then under the Interior Ministry, to use these assets and optimize the cost of production of new IDs.

The Prime Minister reportedly said that this public procurement was revoked in order "to try manage only with government resources". He apparently implied that no EU funding will be used.

"This is the most transparent way. It is a contract for 500 million, after all," Borissov said.

He added that "there has been talk about this contract in the public space" and following consultations with Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev and the Finance Minister, a decision was made that other options exist as well, which will guarantee in the best way the security of personal data.

The announcement about the cancelled public procurements comes a couple of days after the Prime Minister ordered that a contract for construction of extensions of the Hemus Motorway be put on halt, both due to underfunding and to doubts in the public that the contracts were awarded transparently and that the public interest was protected.

The Finance Minister said Wednesday that he personally was in favour of ordering a re-design of the Hemus extensions but this will take time.

The high price of the offer which won the tender, is due to many tunnels and bridges, which pushes up the cost of construction. "Unortunately, a re-design will take at least two years which will delay badly the project," Goranov commented.

The Prime Minister also instructed his ministers Wednesday to cancel public procurement procedures if there is the least doubt of irregularity.