E-Procurement in Albania

Transcription

1 Republic of Albania Public Procurement Agency E-Procurement in Albania Vienna, December 2015

2 Electronic procedures Currently, the use of e-procurement system for contracting authorities and economic operators in Albania is not a challenge anymore. It is rather a normal way of conducting procurement procedures. At present, all the procurement procedures in Albania, including small value purchases (less than 8 million ALL per year) are conducted electronically. Likewise, since 2012 the electronic system is used for conducting the first phase of concessions/ppp procedures (publication of documents and submission of offers) while the offer evaluation is still paper based. 2

3 Electronic procedures 3 Open Local International Restricted Local International Negotiated With Notice Local International Request for Proposal Consulting (first phase) Design Contest (first phase) Small Value Purchase Concessions/PPP (first phase)

4 Electronic procedures-exceptions The following procedures are exempted from the use of electronic means: Negotiation without prior notice of the contract; Second phase of the procedures Consulting Services and Design Contest ; Procurement procedures with a value under 100 thousand ALL and those conducted on emergency cases; Procurement procedures Purchase of electrical energy. 4

5 Electronic System- Main features The e-procurement system is established and can be accessed through the website of the Public Procurement Agency PPA website is the only electronic portal in the country providing the e-procurement service. The registration on the system and the access of the relevant information regarding procurement procedures as well as the online submission of offers is free of charge. The role of the electronic system administrator has been decentralised designating as such each contracting authority. The electronic system includes two separate databases; (i) the platform for conducting e-procurement procedures, and (ii) the electronic archive for closed/finalised/cancelled/suspended procedures for monitoring and auditing purposes. 5

6 6 E-Procurement Platform

7 7 E-Procurement Platform

8 E-procurement Platform-Statistics Statistics of awarded e-procurement procedures January-December 2014 Total number of published procedures 5288 Total Limit Fund for published procedures 60,105,670,018 Total number of procedures that have continued 3879 Total Limit Fund for procedures that have continued 50,407,013,534 Total number of unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 1,409 Total Limit Fund for unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 9,698,656,484 Total number of awarded procedures 4605 Total limit fund 43,246,800,670 Total procured fund 39,497,667,712 % of Procured fund towards Limit Fund 91.3% Total savings fund 3,749,132,958 % Saving fund towards limit fund 8.7% 8

9 E-procurement Platform-Statistics Statistics of awarded e-procurement procedures January-October 2015 Total number of published procedures 4,097 Total Limit Fund for published procedures 75,960,496,041 Total number of procedures that have continued 3,506 Total Limit Fund for procedures that have continued 70,965,408,510 Total number of unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 591 Total Limit Fund for unfinished (cancelled etc) procedures 4,995,087,531 Total number of awarded procedures 3,599 Total limit fund 57,288,328,046 Total procured fund 52,188,834,933 % of Procured fund towards Limit Fund 91.1% Total savings fund 5,099,493,113 % Saving fund towards limit fund 8.9% 9

10 E-procurement Platform-Statistics Use of e-procurement system in 2014: 10

11 E-procurement Platform-Statistics Use of electronic archive in 2014: 11

12 Electronic system- Access to Information The following type of information is published and publically available at the procurement portal: Legal and sublegal acts on public procurement, concessions/ppp and public auctions procedures. Procurement manuals for Contracting Authorities and Economic Operators. Standard Tendering Documents. The Bulletin of Public Notices as well as Contract Notices, Winner Notices, Signed contract notices and Small Value Purchases. Information on excluded economic operators etc. Annual Reports prepared by PPA. On the other hand the information regarding a specific procurement procedure in process is restricted and can be accessed by economic operators and relevant Contracting Authority only. Likewise, all the information regarding archived procedures is also restricted and can be accessed by auditors only. 12

13 Electronic system-users Contracting Authorities have their own account as administrator on the system through which they may create users for: Procurement Unit Officers; Members of the Evaluation Commission; Auditing Officers. Economic Operators wishing to submit offers on a given procurement procedure may create their own account online or through a written request to the PPA. 13

14 E-Procurement-Actors/Roles/Steps Contracting Authority Admin Officer Procurement Officer Suspension Officer Auditor Administrator Public Procurement Agency Publishing Officer Suspension Officer Auditor Administrator Economic Operator Economic Operator 14

15 E-procurement -electronic procedure Admin Officer: Prepares New Workspace & Contract Notice Publisher: Publishes Contract Notice & Call Documents Economic Operators: Submit Tender Proposal Opening Officers: Open Proposals & Notify Evaluators Evaluators: Evaluate Proposals & Notify Admin Officer Admin Officer: Prepares Winner,Contract Award Notice & Archives Call Audit Officer: Audit Call in Archive 15

16 E-Procurement-electronic opening of proposals The e-opening of proposals is based on the following: Once submitted/uploaded to the system the offers are confidential (encrypted) and cannot be accessed/viewed by any person, even by the economic operator itself. The operator can remove the encrypted offer and submit a new one during this period but cannot read and edit it in the system. The contracting authority sets and publish the exact date and time for opening the bids. The bids are opened by at least 3 or more persons (always an odd number) as established case by case by the responsible contracting authority. In order for the offers to be accessible all the designated persons shall enter the system through their own user/password and authorise the opening. Only in this moment the offer is decrypted. 16

17 E-Procurement-electronic opening of proposals (cont.) From the opening of the offers till the closing of the evaluation process all the designated members of the evaluation commission may access all the documents including the financial offer. From the opening of the offers till the closing of the evaluation process all the economic operators who have submitted an offer is notified automatically regarding the status of the process such as: (i) closed for submission, (ii) opening for evaluation, (iii) closed evaluation etc. Once the evaluation is closed the system notifies automatically the final classification and the reasons for disqualification/rejection of the offer. No other interested person, except for bidders (for their own offer) and Evaluation Commission, has access on the above procedure. 17

18 Electronic Archive The electronic archive is one important feature of the electronic system which makes the functioning of the operational system easier because: The archive database has been divided from the operational database reducing, this way, substantially the amount of data in the working server. The transfer of data from the operational database to the archive one is done in real time. The archive database, as the operational database, is on line and easily accessible (by auditors only). The archive database is a great tool for the auditors wishing to audit procurement procedures conducted earlier which can be found and accessed on the archive. 18

19 E-procurement-Benefits The use of the electronic means on procurement procedures has the following benefits: Saves time and facilitates the work of Contracting Authorities and Economic Operators; Reduces the costs for both the Contracting Authorities and the Economic Operators since all the tendering documents are prepared and submitted online; Increases transparency regarding the conduction of the procurement procedures; Reduces the corruptive practices since the submitted offers can be accessed by Evaluation Committee members only and only at the appointed date and time for opening. 19

20 E-procurement- Initial Challenges The establishment of a totally new platform for conducting public procurement procedures was a great challenge for Albania due to the lack of knowledge and previous experience on this regard. Passing from a paper-based procedure to an electronic one needed first and foremost to educate people (especially public officials) and change their mentality and behaviour towards this issue. PPA had to bear the burden of training and providing continuous technical assistance to all the platform users in order to overcome all the technical difficulties they encountered in the process. 20

21 E-procurement-Future objectives In order to improve further the performance of the electronic system and at the same time increase further the system monitoring and security a new perception for the e-procurement system through the following actions is needed: Re-engineering of the data structure and improvement of the existing system framework in the newest versions in order to increase the performance of the e-procurement system and decrease as much as possible the occurring incidents. Adding of the electronic services in the e-albania portal to increase transparency and notify the users on all the published tenders. Submitting of offers for small value procedures through mobile and design of relevant applications for ios and Android platforms. Adding of missing functionalities which hinders the normal work performance. 21

22 E-procurement-Future objectives (cont.) Designing and establishing a new archive system and infrastructure for finalised procedures. Designing Business Intelligence system for reporting and complex analysis. Designing of a testing infrastructure for methodical work during interventions or developments. Designing a Business Continuity Infrastructure within PPA premises Audit Vault System monitoring Automatisation of forecast and realisation registers. 22

23 Thank you! Gjergji Moçka Director of Information Technology and Publication Public Procurement Agency Albania 23