Transparency International Ukraine has presented the results of the research “The Other Side of ProZorro: Does Ukrainian Business Trust Public Procurement?” To conduct it, analysts have surveyed 599 procurement participants in ProZorro and analyzed the activity of participants in the public procurement system during the last three years. 

According to the survey, 54% of the participants are overall satisfied with the work of the ProZorro system. The participants spoke well of interaction with electronic platforms. 80% of the respondents are satisfied with their work on ProZorro electronic platforms, 70% with the convenience of tender search, 79% — with submission of tender proposals. Besides, 63% of entrepreneurs are registered on several platforms at the same time, which shows that there is competition among platforms on the market.

Electronic platforms are an indispensable element of the ProZorro public procurement ecosystem. Not only do they ensure equal access of the business to tenders, they also develop a convenient interface, support the participants and make a contribution to support of the complex IT infrastructure of ProZorro. As the survey has shown, business is mostly satisfied with the work of electronic platforms. This is in stark contrast with the intentions of certain MPs of the Servant of the People party, such as Oleksandr Dubinskyi, who wants to abolish them. Besides, the research has pointed out some still-unresolved problems of the public procurement sector which scare off businesses: discrimination, impunity of procuring entities, etc.” says Director of the Innovation Projects Program Ivan Lakhtionov.

24% of the respondents claim they personally encountered corruption while working with the ProZorro system, 19% know people who have. 41% of people say that they never encountered corruption in ProZorro. Interestingly, the percentage of people who never encountered corruption in public procurement grew by 9% after the implementation of ProZorro. The most common problems faced by business in public procurement are the following: discriminatory requirements in the tender documentation (69.9%), requirements to provide unnecessary documents (68.1%), unfounded rejection of a tender proposal (55.8%). 84% of the participants believe that the liability of procuring entities for violations in the public procurement sector should be greater.

Overall, in the three years of existence of ProZoro, agreements for UAH 3.44 trillion have been concluded. 90,000 participants took part in competitive bidding on ProZorro during this time.

Recall that the President has recently signed a new version of the Law “On Public Procurement,” which will come into effect as soon as in half a year. Under the new law, all procurement from UAH 50,000 (now – UAH 200,000) will be conducted through the ProZorro system, which will shed light on over quarter of a million tenders per year. Besides, the new law will improve the bidding disputing procedure and introduce personal liability for authorized individuals of procuring entities for legislative violations.