Prague wants a public system for tens of millions, MMR already has a functioning tool
As early as this week, the Prague municipality will open the envelopes with the offer for the development of the software, which the city is to provide a system for the competition of public contracts. Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) expects that the contract will cost up to 61.8 million crowns in the following years. The question is why Prague will not use the existing system of the National Electronic Tool (NEN), which works and which the latest report of the Ministry of Local Development (MMR) evaluates positively, saying that it wants to maintain it. The Ministry of Czech Justice itself wrote that it recommends the use of the certified tool by municipalities, although the law does not directly mandate it. “It’s not right and I will ask the mayor about it,” said Ondřej Prokop, head of the opposition parliamentary club of the ANO movement.
“The Ministry of Regional Development created and manages the NEN, which fully supports all procurement options as defined by the Public Procurement Act. In addition, NEN can be used by all contracting authorities in the Czech Republic free of charge, all costs are borne by the MMR. The obligation to use NEN for the implementation of procurement procedures is established by the Office of the Government for central state administration bodies and their subordinate organizations,” said department spokesman Vilém Frček.
This obligation does not apply to local administration and self-government. “For MMR, however, we always recommend that an electronic tool certified in the sense of the decree on establishing more detailed conditions regarding electronic tools, actions in the awarding of public contracts be used,” Frček added.
Central purchases on the new platform in Prague should mainly concern goods ranging from office supplies, furniture, medical aids, food, hardware to fuel, informed Mayor Hřib already in March. The envelopes should be opened on August 24, and the system should be operational from January. According to experts contacted by the Czech Justice, it is a relatively gallows time. “The main goal of central purchasing is to reduce the costs of ordinary shopping in the capital through a simple e-shop. This will be the same for both the city and its more than 250 contributing organizations. Thanks to this, Prague will be able to better coordinate and control individual purchases. Purchases in a larger volume and scale will also reduce the purchase price, and as a result the city will save up to tens of millions of crowns per year. The city will be able to use these savings effectively elsewhere,” said the mayor in March. But why doesn’t he use the existing functional NEN system? The municipality of Czech Justice did not respond to this.
“Given the fact that the procurement procedure is still ongoing and will end only when the contract with the selected supplier is concluded, or its cancellation, we cannot provide all information on its progress for the duration of the procurement procedure,” said only the spokesperson Tadeáš Provazník, adding that the Prague central purchasing project takes it seriously and wants to get the best services available at the moment. “For this reason, the contract is tendered in an open tender. We are asking for a solution that is currently not commonly available at the state level, because the system will be used for the specific environment of the capital. m of Prague, including a large number of contributory organizations,” he added.
The main criteria should be the lowest price according to the entry. The remuneration of suppliers will be reimbursed ex-post according to the volume of realized purchases. When creating the contract, Prague did not use the preliminary market consultations regulated in § 33 of the Act on the Awarding of Public Contracts. The law stipulates that the contracting authority may conduct market consultations with experts or suppliers with the aim of preparing tender conditions and informing the supplier of its intentions and requirements. The condition is that such a procedure does not distort economic competition. Preliminary market consultations are a very valuable tool for the contracting authority, which can be used to better determine the market situation.
The NEN system is used, for example, by ministries. “In NEN, the provision of departments is both centralized public procurement and the state’s purchase of software products,” explained Ondřej Krátoška, spokesman for the central purchasing system at the Ministry of the Interior.
In NEN, there are centrally competitive framework agreements as well as dynamic purchasing systems (DNS), on which the central contracting authority is competitive mini-tenders from framework agreements or calls from DNS. Expressing contracting authorities can also compete in mini-tenders or calls from DNS separately from framework agreements. The NEN is also collecting requirements for competitive commodities. “Thus, in NEN, the central contracting authority can see into all executed orders based on framework agreements and DNS, and can control fulfillment and financial drawdown, so that the value of the contracts is not exceeded. The central contracting authority, acting as the authorizing contracting authority, subsequently fulfills the legal obligations set out in Act No. 134/2016 Coll., on the awarding of public contracts,” explained Krátoška.
Eva Paseková