The Chamber has adopted a new law on public procurement against corruption

PRAGUE - The Chamber of Deputies today approved new rules aimed at limiting the possibility of corruption in public procurement. According to the government, the new law is intended to contribute to greater transparency in the awarding of contracts. The regulation stipulates, for example, that public procurement tenders cannot be directed to a specific company. The draft, which has undergone dozens of amendments by the deputies, will now be sent to the Senate for consideration.
Public procurement providers will be required by law to adhere to the principles of transparency, equal treatment, and non-discrimination. This also applies to small contracts up to two million crowns. However, other provisions of the law do not have to be followed by their providers.
"The rules for those sub-threshold (contracts) are virtually minimally restricted; they just need to ensure so-called transparency," said Minister for Regional Development Radko Martínek (CSSD) to journalists. The minister reminded that the adopted regulation is a key law due to a new European Union directive, as the possibilities for awarding contracts are to be the same in all EU countries.
"The adoption of this law is necessary as part of harmonizing national legislation with EU law," also pointed out Jaromír Drábek, spokesperson for the Chamber of Commerce. It is said that some partial amendments to the original law had already been adopted in the past, but the resulting compilation was unclear and contained technical errors. "The new law addresses these shortcomings, but whether it will actually act against corruption will only be seen in practice. In my opinion, this area will unfortunately not be significantly influenced in the Czech Republic," he noted.
The regulation now includes electronic procurement, which, according to the Ministry of Regional Development, is intended to contribute to greater transparency and savings in public procurement. The government also proposed the possibility of awarding contracts through so-called collective purchasing entities. According to the ministry, this may lead to savings for selected commodities purchased in large quantities. This will be useful for smaller providers, such as municipalities, which will be able to agree on contract awarding.
The law distinguishes public contracts based on price levels into over-threshold, under-threshold, and small-scale contracts. For construction work, an over-threshold contract is defined as one with a value exceeding 165.288 million crowns, while for other types of supplies or services, the limit must not exceed 13.215 million crowns. The government originally proposed these limits to be higher, at 186.713 million crowns and 14.91 million crowns. Over-threshold contracts must be published in the EU Gazette.
For under-threshold contracts, it is sufficient to publish only in the Czech Republic; they are also subject to simpler qualification requirements or shorter deadlines. For small-scale public contracts, the government set a limit of up to two million crowns, which is to be tripled for construction work according to the Chamber.
Senators adjusted the provision in the law under which an unsuccessful participant in the tender can challenge its results after posting a deposit of at least 50,000 crowns. This provision is intended to prevent delays in the awarding of contracts. The law also allows providers of over-threshold contracts to request from bidders a so-called monetary guarantee of two percent of the value of the contract to determine their seriousness.