Civil Supervisor in Public Procurement 2014

With the new Law on Public Procurement, a civil supervisor was introduced into the public procurement system in December 2012. If the procuring entity conducts a public procurement procedure whose estimated value is higher than one billion dinars, the procedure is supervised by a civil supervisor. The law, among other things, prescribes that the civil supervisor (NGO or individual) is obliged to supervise the public procurement procedure and for that purpose he has constant insight into the procedure, documentation and communication of the procuring entity with interested persons, ie bidders. The Civil Supervisor submits a report on supervision to the Public Procurement Administration and the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, ie the Assembly of the Autonomous Province or Local Self-Government, and may indicate to the public if there were any irregularities during the procedure.

This project aimed to strengthen the position of the civil supervisor and improve anti-corruption provisions, but also the practice in the field of public procurement through several activities:

- TS acted as a civil supervisor for selected public procurements and submitted a report on the supervision of the public procurement procedure to the Public Procurement Directorate and the Finance Committee of the National Assembly

- TS has organized training for potential civic supervisors - individuals and organizations that are experts in areas that are most likely to be the subject of large value public procurement, but have no experience in public procurement procedures. In this way, a base of professional civic supervisors has been formed, which ensures a sustainable and responsible public procurement system

- TS analyzed the previous history of public procurement between the observed contracting authorities and bidders - whether there were irregularities or indications of suspicious behavior

- In cases where the TS identified significant irregularities in the observed public procurement procedure, and the procuring entity did not eliminate them in accordance with the recommendations of the TS, an appropriate sanctioning procedure was initiated.

The project is supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Belgrade.