Procurement of Ministry of Defense Requires Systemic Changes

MPs adopted draft law No. 8381 in the first reading, proposing to make partial reporting on some defense procurement mandatory. Transparency International Ukraine warns that it will not fix systemic problems with procurement in this field. 

After the scandal with the procurement of food for the military, MPs proposed to oblige the Ministry of Defense to report on such procurement in Prozorro, but partially. They want to publish the name of the government procuring entity, the name of the procurement item (indicating the unit of measurement for goods), the price per unit of goods, the price of works and services.  

For food procurement, more detailed reporting is offered — in particular, on the cost of all components of the specified services: separate names of food (goods) with an indication of the unit of measurement and price per such unit, as well as the cost of individual services.

Despite the good goal, this draft law will not be able to solve problems with defense procurement, as they are systemic.

“What MPs are proposing will ensure only partial publication of very limited information. In our experience, it is usually not enough to assess the effectiveness of a procurement transaction and find out whether it has signs of corruption. We hope to see food prices, but time will tell whether quality implementation will be possible,” explains Ivan Lakhtionov, TI Ukraine’s Deputy Executive Director for Innovative Projects. 

A systemic solution to the problem of defense procurement should begin with its quality planning and determining what is truly sensitive information that cannot be published because it can be used by the enemy. The rest of the information about such procurement should be public. And procurement should be carried out competitively through Prozorro. 

Read more about the draft law No. 8381 in the legal analysis.