SLOVAK hospitals have spent more than €563 million in tenders that involved only one bidder, according to an analysis carried out by the INEKO think tank and ethics watchdog Transparency International Slovensko (TIS). The NGOs surveyed public procurements at 60 hospitals dating back to 2009, the TASR newswire reported.
“The average number of bidders in tenders announced by hospitals was 1.7, while it was almost three in other sectors,” said Dušan Zachar of INEKO and Zuzana Dančíková of TIS, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
The authors of the analysis calculated that if every tender announced by the hospitals had had more than one bidder, that could have saved the hospitals 21 percent of the total amount spent, which represents about €116 million.
The results also show that about half of all procurements were won by only 13 companies.
The biggest supplier, the firm Meditrade, won orders worth €64 million without any rival bidders, TASR wrote.
