Reforms in the Albanian Public Procurement System 7 th Regional Public Procurement Forum Tbilisi, Georgia May 16-19, 2011 PUBLIC PROCUREMENT AGENCY 1

Current Status Legal framework: Law no of “On public procurement”, as amended; Council of Ministers Decision no. 1 of “On public procurement regulations”, as amended; Council of Ministers Decision No. 659, dated “On the approval of public procurement regulations with electronic means”; Council of Ministers Decision no. 45 of “On the performance of public procurement procedures with electronic means”. 2

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. 3

Institutional framework The implementation of legal framework on public procurement is exercised through: Public Procurement Agency; Public Procurement Commission; Procurement’s Advocate; Contracting Authorities. 4

Public Procurement Agency Submits to the Council of Ministers proposals for procurement regulations; promotes and organizes training of central and local government officials performing public procurement procedures; prepares standard tender documents to be used in public procurement procedures; on request, gives advice and provides technical assistance to CA, when launching and conducting awarding procedures; edits and issues the public procurement Bulletin; presents an annual report to the Council of Ministers regarding the overall functioning of the public procurement system; monitors the public procurement system through information reported periodically from Contracting Authorities and Procurement Advocate; in case of misconduct, penalizes with fines or proposes to the head of CA or higher bodies disciplinary measures against the individual in the CA, who committed the infringement. 5

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 First Instance Court of Tirana. 6

Procurement’s Advocate The Procurement’s Advocate safeguards the legal rights and interests of candidates, bidders or suppliers against the irregular actions or lack of actions by the CA in the field of public procurement. This institution monitors and investigates the administrative procedures in public procurement. 7

Recent amendments to the legal framework on public procurement Law no of “On the approval of the Normative Act no. 3 of “On some amendments to the law no. 9643, date “On public procurement”, as amended. The amendments established through this law do mainly pertain to PPA legal duties: PPA has now the competence to monitor the progress of the public procurement system through information of the periodical reports, submitted by Contracting Authorities and the Procurement’s Advocate. PPA has not anymore the legal duty to carry out administrative investigation: the provisions of the law on public procurement, in respect of the procedure on administrative investigation and the legal actions after conclusion of such investigation are abrogated. 8

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) 9

IPA Twinning Project 3 components: Legal and institutional reform; Capacity building for the stakeholders dealing with public procurement; Communication regarding the public procurement field. 10

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. Duration of this project: 6 months 11

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. 12

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 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. 13

Procurement procedures conducted in the electronic system from January 1, 2010 – December 31,

Data on electronic procurement procedures as conducted and completed by resulting in awarding winners in the system, during

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. 16

Last but not least…. World Bank project for the electronic procurement system, running since This project was requested by the PPA. Its purpose: the assessment of the electronic procurement system, in terms of elements such as feasibility, system’s safety, data flow. 17

Main challenges and priorities in progress Well-implementation of public procurement legislation. 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. 18

THANK YOU! 19