Social partners support new public procurement rules

The Economic and Social Council of Slovakia has expressed its support for a draft amendment to the law on public procurement prepared by Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák. However, representatives of both employees and employers had several comments on the proposed measures and agreed that before the law is discussed in parliament the tripartite will meet with Kaliňák to discuss possible changes, the SITA newswire reported on January 7.

The Economic and Social Council of Slovakia has expressed its support for a draft amendment to the law on public procurement prepared by Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák. However, representatives of both employees and employers had several comments on the proposed measures and agreed that before the law is discussed in parliament the tripartite will meet with Kaliňák to discuss possible changes, the SITA newswire reported on January 7.

“The law will unambiguously bring more transparency and much more effective spending of state resources through which other jobs are created,” said Kaliňák, as quoted by SITA, adding that “it would be possible to interconnect good purchases of state, effective, cheap and high quality [sic], with the result that at the same time taxpayers’ money, which is also redistributed in this way, will ultimately serve to create jobs”.

The proposed measures include many positive changes focused on, for example, more effective usage of capacities of secondary vocational study, the minister said. He added that after the discussions over the amendment there will be an even better law and better business environment. Businesses would be able to participate in public tenders without fear that these might be manipulated, Kaliňák added.

However, Miroslav Beblavý, an MP for the opposition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ), criticised the amendment, saying that besides small changes that increase the volume of published information, the proposal still contains measures that will allow the manipulation of public procurement and corruption, SITA wrote on January 8.

“I am glad that the minister withdrew [the suggestion of so-called] strategic orders, but the minister himself has confessed recently that this suggestion was rather a [decoy] which was to provoke and hide other, more important changes,” Beblavý said, as quoted by SITA. “Therefore I rather evaluate it as tactics and hiding other problems in the amendment.”

Source: SITA

Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.

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