Public procurement procedures in Bosnia-Herzegovina are not transparent; they unfairly treat and discriminate against participants in the process, do not encourage active and fair competition, and are inefficient and uneconomic, show the main findings of the project “Make Public Procurement Truly Public” presented on Friday in Sarajevo.
Mervan Mirascija from the Open Society Fund stated at a press conference that Bosnia-Herzegovina loses huge amounts of public funds annually through public procurement procedures, estimated at between four and five hundred million BAM.
He stated that the violation of the Law on Public Procurement repeats at all stages of the procedure, and that the law is violated by contracting authorities at all levels of government.
“There is great distrust of economic entities, that is, tender applicants in the public procurement system and cartelization of the public procurement market is noticeable,” said Mirascija.
Mirascija added that in 2020, the focus of public procurement monitoring will be on purposefulness, due to the fact that it is an election year.
“It is indicative that public procurement budgets grow by more than 50 percent in election years,” said Mirascija, Fena reports.