Bìznes Inform (May 2021)
Discrimination as an Instrument of Corruption Schemes in Public Procurement
Abstract
The article characterizes the current state of organizational and legal support for the functioning of the public procurement system, taking into account the novelties of legislation; both the inter-sectoral and the protective principles of bidding, which are closely interrelated and form a single system, are analyzed; the role of the principle of «prevention of corruption actions and abuse», which has a comprehensive influence on the entire mechanism of implementation of the norm-setting innovations, is defined; a number of factors that cause corruption risks and distort the effect of basic principles in the sphere of procurement are distinguished (in particular: dishonest behavior of officials; discretion in making legally significant decisions; insufficient professionalization of bidding; imperfect system of internal control over conduct of tenders and execution of contracts); the concept of discrimination is singled out and its role as an instrument for the implementation of corruption schemes in public procurement is defined. Based on the analysis of the effective practice of appealing by the AMCU, a number of ways of using discriminatory elements by customers at the initial and final stages of bidding are systematized, namely: establishing obvious and hidden excessive requirements in the tender documentation; manipulation of technical and qualitative conditions to the subject of procurement; unjustified disparate approach to participants with the similar errors in the preparation of tender offers. Practical measures to counteract discriminatory violations in the sphere of procurement activities are generalized, which involve the use of the capabilities of the digitized systems «ProZorro» and «DoZorro» with active participation in this process by direct procurement participants, non-governmental organizations, and government authorities.
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