Motivation
More than a quarter of public procurement in Romania is suspected of corruption or fraud, according to a report by the National Agency for Public Procurement. What is the cost of corruption? Statistics say that between 5.4 and 12 billion Euros - public funds wasted in public tenders where goods and services are bought and overpriced, often from companies enrolled in government contracts.
The Covid-19 crisis has only highlighted these vulnerabilities deeply rooted in the Romanian system. Moreover, swift legislative measures to combat the pandemic have further encouraged borderline or illegal practices. Many authorities abused their ability to conclude direct contracts, even if they had nothing to do with preventing and combating the spread of the new coronavirus. The effects were seen in official reports, but also in the investigations of journalists who showed how the contracting authorities hurried to do a kind of "express shopping" for goods whose value to the public is questionable.
Many of these problems can be tackled by applying open contracting principles and standards, a concept to which more than 50 countries and cities around the world have already adhered.
Goals
The open contracting concept is is a set of rules and practices aimed at greater transparency and participation in all stages of the public procurement process. The aim of this project is to reduce corruption in public procurement by introducing this concept to the public and decision makers.
More precisely:
- we'll investigate the needs and flaws in legislation regarding transparency and public participation through comparing this with examples of good practices from French municipalities
- we'll initiate a dialogue between civic society and policy makers and try to find MPs who are interested in introducing this concept into legislation
- we'll initiate a public awareness campaign about what open contracting is and its benefits
- we'll monitor the implementation of open contracting in legislation
Partners
We're launching this project in partnership with the Open Contracting Partnership, an organization with international level activity and with essential expertise for the implementation of the concept of open contracting.
The CMO will support us both financially and through technical assistance and will help us identify and analyze examples of good practice in the field.
Financing
The "Open Contracting - promoting good governance in public tenders using the French model" project is financially supported in part by The French Embassy in Romania / The French Institute through a grant of 4.850 Euro offered during a project contest: Support for civic society on the Rule of Law topic.
Also, the project also benefits from a 5.000 USD funding provided by the Open Contracting Partnership.
Calendar
The project will take place over a period of 5 months.
1st of August 2021 - 31st of December 2021
Project implemented with the help of the French Embassy in Romania / The French Institute in Romania