The Malta Chamber on Wednesday, launched a document titled The Public Procurement Reform Report, containing 36 recommendations on the entire procurement process.
The Chamber explained that the key recommendations in this document relate to the Blacklisting of operators, the implementation and management of Direct Orders and the Performance of Public Contracts post-award.
Click here [1] to download the full report.
It said that economic operators who are in breach of the law, have to be sanctioned and should not be allowed to participate in public procurement or allowed to enter into public contracts.
If contracting authorities do not backlist economic operators who have breached the law, the wrong message is sent to the ethical market and honest operators that everything goes, the Chamber said.
“Contracting authorities should reward economic operators who comply with the law, not only because this is the right thing to do, but because it is a cost for economic operators to comply with the law and contracting authorities must see that there is an equitable level playing field among all economic operators,” the Chamber said. “This action will also reassure consumers of the effective use of public funds.”
The Malta Chamber stressed that it does not disagree with the concept of directly awarded public contracts so long as their award is (i) duly substantiated and justified in accordance with the law; (ii) adequately publicised, ideally, through a Contract Register; and (iii) subject to scrutiny and judicial challenge by interested parties.
The Malta Chamber stated that the monitoring of the performance of public contracts should also be shared with the private sector alike to other aspects of public procurement, obviously, with due respect to trade secrets and sensitive commercial information.
The Malta Chamber said that it “believes that in implementing the necessary recommendations, proposed in this document, the Maltese Government will improve the quality of the tendering process, ensure fairness to all economic operators and reassure the public of an equitable use of public funds.”
The document, the Chamber said, is the result of a consultation process it undertook by setting up a working group formed by individuals representing economic operators that have different levels of experience submitting tenders across different industry sectors.
“The document serves as valuable guidance for the necessary reforms that are needed in order to ensure that economic operators are on a level playing field when tendering for government purchasing opportunities,” the Malta Chamber said. “These reforms also serve to ensure that public funds are deployed to their best potential.”
The Chamber insisted that such procurement exercises “must be accessible to all eligible economic operators, free from impropriety and in compliance with the law.”
The Malta Chamber concluded by saying that it has strived to continue working on the importance of good governance, transparency and ethical business.
The Working Group was composed of Liz Barbaro Sant, Anton Borg, Marcel K. Mifsud, Maronna Filletti, Mary Gaerty, Roderick Abela and Julia Aquilina. Dr Clement Mifsud Bonnici (Ganado Advocates) was the technical adviser on the process.