BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov.7
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
State procurement of low value goods, work and services (amounted to 145 billion tenge or $372.2 million in 2018) in Kazakhstan will soon be implemented via new, competitive methods, Kazakhstan’s Vice-Minister of Finance Ruslan Beketayev told Trend in an interview.
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has previously noted that state procurement contains a great reserve (according to some assessments, approximately 400 billion tenge or $1 billion), which could be used to solve relevant social issues. According to Tokayev, notwithstanding the state procurement optimization implemented by country’ Ministry of Finance, measures of legislative nature are required.
In regards to the president’s remarks, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance has already developed new law on the issues of state procurement which oversees the decrease of the purchases from single sources.
“Thus, implementation of low value procurement via new, competitive method is planned. With this in mind we are introducing simple and user-friendly methods of procurement, “online store” similar to kaspi.kz online store, and the auction with using framework agreements, which also allow to significantly accelerate and simplify procurement, and also increase its quality,” Beketayev said.
Furthermore, for decrease of procurement from single source, the ministry is to put together a list of clients and suppliers, which are allowed to make agreements following procurement from a single source. According to the vice-minister, the list will be posted online, which will prevent making unfounded agreements from a single source.
At the same time a new model of procurement centralization, which is to transfer procurement organization to unified clients on central, regional and district level is also being implemented.
“This model will first and foremost free chief medical officers, school headmasters and other budget organizations from unusual functions, will provide for assets saving, as well as for decrease of administrative expenditures by integrating same time goods into one lot,” he said.
Additionally, thanks to the introduction of the model, the corruption risks will increase due to the decrease of number of organizers, which will simplify the procurement management.
As Beketayev noted, this model will tested in pilot mode in a number of central state authorities and regional akimats (administrative centers) starting from January 2020.
Talking about innovations in state procurement system in 2019, vice minister highlighted that the system does not stand still and is constantly improving, responding to every change in the country and abroad.
Thus, since July 1, 2019, state procurement of goods of light industry and furniture are implemented from suppliers which have industrial certification, which allow clients to purchase goods straight off the manufacturers.
Starting from September 1, 2019, state procurement in area of construction and installation work is implemented only among suppliers, which meet the requirements of the financial sustainability.
“This innovation will prevent participation of companies, which do not have enough qualification in the procurement, and will stimulate companies to pay taxes,” the official said.
He added that there are cases already when potential suppliers are actively providing additional tax reports and increase tax base for last three years.
Starting from September 1 of this year, the online data base of activities of potential suppliers is being put together. Potential supplier are themselves adding information on implemented construction work over the course of last 10 year to the ‘Online depository’.
“Presently, about 80 percent of the state procurement accounts for construction work, the main criterion of which is the work experience of the supplier. In pursuit of increased experience, potential suppliers often submit false information. Furthermore, procurement organizers also often wrongly assess particular company’s experience. “Online depository’ will allow to automate and make transparent the company’s experience assess, and will solve the issue with providing false information,” Beketayev concluded.
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