On Thursday, 21 June, the Saeima in the third and final reading adopted amendments to the Public Procurement Law that will increase the accessibility to public procurement for SMEs and reduce the administrative burden on entrepreneurs.

The amendments to the Law will significantly reduce the deposit required of participants in a competition – from five per cent of the contract price to up to two per cent.

The amendments are intended to reduce the administrative burden on entrepreneurs; that is, instead of requesting an applicant to provide relevant references, e.g., on tax debts, on being solvent or under liquidation, public institutions will share this information among themselves. As of 1 January 2014, the Cabinet of Ministers will have to ensure the availability of this information to commissioning parties in public data bases or online information systems of relevant authorities.

“Significant effort has been devoted to drafting the amendments to the Public Procurement Law. The Committee received more than a hundred proposals, and the working group has been considering these proposals for several months. The new wording of the Law will facilitate competition and prevent dishonest civil servants from organising competitions tailor-made for one specific applicant,” emphasises Vjačeslavs Dombrovskis, Chairman of the Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Policy Committee.

The amendments set forth the rights and obligations of subcontractors in cases where the applicant who has been awarded a construction contract intends to hire a subcontractor for executing a part of the contract. The amendments will require the applicant and the subcontractor to sign a procurement contract or framework agreement as an association of suppliers, thereby indicating the responsibilities of each member of this association.

Furthermore, the amendments clarify the terms used in the Law and introduce additional exceptions when the commissioning party is allowed not to make the procurement.

Saeima Press Service