Transparency International Ukraine lauds the effective vote of the Verkhovna Rada for draft law 4738-d “On Introduction of Changes to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Public Procurement’ and Certain Other Laws of Ukraine Concerning Monitoring of Procurement.” On December 21, 2017, 226 MPs supported the document as a whole.

After the President signs the law and it comes into effect, important changes in the area of control over procurement in the ProZorro system will take place. The State Audit Service of Ukraine (hereinafter SASU), as a body tasked with the function of monitoring of public procurement, will receive a clear procedure of inspections. Among the tools provided to the SASU will be automatic risk-indicators which will serve as a sign of suspicious bidding in the system. Auditors will replace “paper” exchange of information with customers for electronic. Information on monitoring results will be public. One of the important innovations is the fact that customers will be obliged to eliminate violations found by the auditors or provide a substantiated objection instead. The draft law also clearly establishes the term of inspection – 15 days, which can be extended by another 10 days with good reason.

With this decision, the Verkhovna Rada eliminates the absurd situation which has existed since the moment of approval of the new Law “On Public Procurement” (came into effect on August 1, 2016). The Law established SASU as the service responsible for monitoring of public procurement, however, until now there has been no clear mechanism and procedure of such monitoring. The conclusions made by the SASU concerning tenders were recommendatory instead of binding.

Approval of 4738-d was the result of coordinated work of governmental and non-governmental organizations, namely, the team of public control over procurement DOZORRO, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, State Enterprise ProZorro, State Audit Service of Ukraine and the Committee on Economic Policy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Transparency International Ukraine is thankful to all its partners and counts on the President to sign the Law as soon as possible.