Political crisis, war and provocation record drop in public procurement in Portugal
The political crisis that culminated in the collapse of the first State Budget proposal for 2022 (OE2022) and the fall of the government last October, the war that broke out in Ukraine in February, the skyrocketing inflation and production costs combined with a provocation of global uncertainty that already frightens many risks and investors are and continue to cause serious problems in public procurement in Portugal.
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The value of contracts signed between public entities and private companies sank by more than 40% in the same period of 2021 (when the pandemic was at its height), which is the biggest setback Public procurement contract, according to cash cycle (DV) ) based on the selection of contracts published in the Portal Base (Instituto do Inicial do Mercado Real Estate and the Portal), series dating back to the beginning of 2011.
According to the survey carried out by the DV no base, the largest public advertised in this first quarter (and the largest in the year until the end of May) was not even a construction contract. It ended up being one in the Health area with the aim of hiring hospital meals for ten years and modernizing kitchens in São João, Porto.
The value of the deal exceeds 38.9 million euros, which ended up helping the quarter not be even worse.
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The São João Center awarded the purchase of food services with the remodeling of the kitchen and dining facilities” plus the “supply of university cuisine to the Spanish company Mediterránea de Catering, SLU.
The public entity SUCH – Service for the Common Use of Hospitals is also entering the business through a consortium with the Spaniards.
A sinking that already comes from behind
The slump in the first quarter accumulates with the strong retraction that took place in the fourth quarter of last year (coinciding with the height of the political crisis and the fall of the PS government), in the order of 36%, according to DV accounts.
Before the start of the marking in the official data of 202040% of this quarter of public procurement20020 second grade212 (year-on-year data drop of 38), but at that time the first quarter was to a previous austerity program that occurred first to an austerity program Asphyxiated a lot public expenditure and investments, in addition to the fact that the economy’s rating is considered junk and that many investors do not believe in Portugal’s ability to overcome a crisis.
But, currently, it is such a help to many European funds, which were planned to start for projects of the European crisis (in the framework of the project to rescue European funds) ), for example, which only lasts until 2026), ended up by get suspended or delay a lot.
There are reports that aim at the production of public tenders because the costs of justice and do not offset the costs of justice.
The government, through the Ministry of Infrastructure, has, however, advanced an “exceptional and temporary regime to allow price revisions in public contracts, due to the abrupt increase in the costs of the structure of materials, labor or equipment”.
The idea is that a rise in companies’ costs will not derail the interest in carrying out or remaining in the works in progress and thus preventing them from stalling; and, even now that the tenders are going to be public, they still avoid proposals for proposals (something that, by the way, at this stage, already happened in some projects before the inflationary crisis).
Government admits, President Carrega
The minister, Mariana Vieira, who is now in charge of the Presidency, already has problems in the functioning of European funds, namely the PRR, because of the worsening of the world economic situation and the restoration of destruction in Ukraine that has not yet ended.
The urgent need for European funds to be highly beneficial and to the maximum extent is something that has been dramatized by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo Sousa.
There are two ministers I saw, minister da Silva, a world of PRR, different from RRTP, with more accessible tools and materials that will be able to trigger the execution of the PRR.
“Some countries have already warned that there is a rhythm of execution of goals that is not possible” to meet and that, in this sense, they will even be in conversations with the European Commission to make the PRR deadlines and dates for meeting goals more flexible in order to if you manage to use all available funds.
In the National Plan, which the government delayed waiting, Program at the beginning of May, even with the recognition that the fulfillment of some goals (about Estazena) is ” to the PRR, a framework estimated at 16.6 million euros until 2026 , of which 13.9 million are non-refundable.
On this, the minister said that the commitments currently “in arrears” will be exceeded “soon”. “Our capacity is that we will have the capacity to comply” and, thus, will not meet the receipt of new installments.
In any case, all this is holding up public procurement, of course. The first quarter of annual contracting of the contracting of absolute value, the first recorded and recorded as the largest number of public information and recorded in absolute value.
We are now at the end of May and, according to Portal Base, one billion euros were contracted, one third of the amount disclosed in the second quarter of last year.
That is, public entities must close deals worth euros in June to reach the value of one million years.