Prishtinë, December 14, 2018 – Recent developments have been made in public procurement area in Kosovo in order to further facilitate application procedures, increasing transparancy, and facilitating access to public data. This was said during the roundtable organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Kosovo, titled “Public Procurement on Continuous Development”.
Arian Zeka, AmCham Executive Director, said that businesses have oftentimes expressed their concerns regarding the pubic procurement activities, considering the recent developments positive which have been enabled thanks to the readiness of the local institutions and also the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) programs.
Stephen Carpenter, Chief of Party, USAID Transparent, Effective and Accountable Municipalities activity in Kosovo, said that the complete publication of tender contracts in online systems for the public results in higher transparancy, while the development of the e-procurement system which includes all procedures, starting from annoucing offers to the selection of economic operators, decreases the physical contact betweeen the operators and the contracting authorities. He assessed as courageous the readiness of mancipalities to cooperate in this field, whereas while discussing about the the increasing levels of transparency, he also discussed about the help provided for the Public Procurement Review Body, which will enable live broadcasting the hearing sessions of this insitution.
Sami Uka, Member of Board of Public Procurement Regulatory Commission, said that this institution has closely worked with the USAID activity with the purpose of further developing the public procurement system, and also to enable increase of norms by publishing the procurement process data. He also emphasized that the PPRC will further contribute in ensuring a better public procurement environment in the country.
Blerim Dina, Chairman of Procurement Review Body, amongst others, mentioned the recent development made by this institution, which enables live broadcasting of procurement sessions by saying that through this we aim at increasing transparency and closer access to economic operators. He said that PRB also has contributed in publishing issued decisions as well as the developing the electronic complaint system which have reflected on a higher number of complaints reported in this institution.