Improving Transparency and Effectiveness of Public Procurement in Moldova through Cooperation with Civil Society

Overview
Project Summary Document

TCRS 9268

Status Approved

Location

Moldova

Business Sector

Working with EBRD

Notice Type

State

PSD Disclosed

09 Apr 2020

Project Description

Improving the investment climate and strengthening economic governance remain core challenges to Moldova’s economic and political transition. In particular, corruption is regarded as one of the main impediments hindering the business environment in the country. Public procurement is one of the most critical aspects of good governance in the Republic of Moldova, where the involvement of civil society can add real value in terms of enhancing transparency and addressing corruption problems at every stage of public procurement process. The area of public procurement in Moldova is facing challenges of underdeveloped local market, low competition and a low degree of transparency. Honest business avoids public procurement, afraid of bribery and nepotism. Accession to Agreement on Government Procurement of the World Trade Organisation in 2016 improved the national state’s legislation on public procurement but institutional framework at the Ministry of Finance and Public Procurement Agency remains unreformed and weak. One of the biggest problems of the system is poor financial planning and controlling. In addition, and monitoring of public procurement procedures by Public Procurement Agency covers very few cases per year and remains is largely ineffective. This undermines the procurement process, results in poor performance of the public procurement system and no accountability in how the public money is spent. Since 2016 the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Moldova is working with the EBRD and civil society (6 local NGOs) on implementing the pilot of new electronic procurement system – MTender and it is expected that introduction of online bidding and real time publication of open data on public procurement will improve transparency of the process and access to information about procurement decisions in the government.

To strengthen the impact of reforms, the Ministry has requested donors’ assistance to support monitoring of transparency, accountability and value for money in public spending. In response to the Government’s request, the Civil Society Engagement Unit (CSEU) in cooperation with the Legal Transition Team (LTT) have developed a Technical Cooperation project aimed at creating modern data-driven monitoring procedures and tools for public procurement conducted on the MTender to and enable active engagement of the civil society in monitoring public spending and verifying procurement decisions and outcomes of awarded public contracts. When implemented, it would enable effective examination how public sector bodies in Moldova utilise state budget in public procurement and public contracts and would strengthen investor confidence and contribute to improving the business climate more broadly in the country.

The overall objective is to ensure that the Government of Moldova is under citizens’ pressure to continue public procurement reforms regardless political instability as there is a risk that encouraging results of introduction of electronic public procurement in Moldova are squandered by inert public administration and politicians interested in preserving status quo. To prevent abandoning reform process in public procurement it is necessary to ensure that the general public, civil society groups and organisations have access to independent information on public procurement and whistleblower facilities are available to safely and effectively report cases of corruption to relevant enforcement agencies. Through improved transparency of procurement the project is also expected to encourage a more transparent, effective and accountable planning of the state and municipal budgets and use of public funds in Moldova. Use of data-driven monitoring tools would expose procurement officers to effective scrutiny of their contract award decisions and performance of public contracts would be verified against political declarations of government officials as well. To achieve it, it is envisaged that the project will ultimately comprise two assignments. Assignment 1 focuses on designing monitoring methodologies and online monitoring tools redflagging potential cases of corruption and waste in public procurement as well as creating a modern whistlerblower web portal for reporting corruption cases. This assignment of the project will be executed by the Legal Transition Programme (LTP) in order to utilise know-how and tools developed under previous projects implemented in Ukraine and the CIS region. Assignment 2 – capacity building and stakeholder engagement with civil society organisations and watchdogs in Moldova needs to be fully tailored to local challenges in Moldova and it will be developed and carried out by the Civil Society Engagement Unit (CSEU).

The client is the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Moldova

Enquiries

Business opportunities

For business opportunities or procurement, contact the client company.

For business opportunities with EBRD (not related to procurement) contact:

Tel: +44 20 7338 7168
Email: projectenquiries@ebrd.com

For state-sector projects, visit EBRD Procurement:

Tel: +44 20 7338 6794
Email: procurement@ebrd.com

General enquiries

Specific enquiries can be made using the EBRD Enquiries form.

TCRS 9268

Status Approved

Location

Moldova

Business Sector

Working with EBRD

Notice Type

State

PSD Disclosed

09 Apr 2020

Project Description

The client is the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Moldova

Any competitive selections for business opportunities relating to this project will be published on the EBRD's website: Consultancy Procurement Opportunities.

General enquiries

EBRD project enquiries not related to procurement:
Tel: +44 20 7338 7168
Email: projectenquiries@ebrd.com

Access to Information Policy (AIP)

The AIP sets out how the EBRD discloses information and consults with its stakeholders so as to promote better awareness and understanding of its strategies, policies and operations following its entry into force on 1 January 2020. Please visit the Access to Information Policy page to find out what information is available from the EBRD website.

Specific requests for information can be made using the EBRD Enquiries form

Independent Project Accountability Mechanism (IPAM)

If efforts to address environmental, social or public disclosure concerns with the Client or the Bank are unsuccessful (e.g. through the Client’s Project-level grievance mechanism or through direct engagement with Bank management), individuals and organisations may seek to address their concerns through the EBRD’s Independent Project Accountability Mechanism (IPAM).

IPAM independently reviews Project issues that are believed to have caused (or to be likely to cause) harm. The purpose of the Mechanism is: to support dialogue between Project stakeholders to resolve environmental, social and public disclosure issues; to determine whether the Bank has complied with its Environmental and Social Policy or Project-specific provisions of its Access to Information Policy; and where applicable, to address any existing non-compliance with these policies, while preventing future non-compliance by the Bank.

Please visit the Independent Project Accountability Mechanism webpage to find out more about IPAM and its mandate; how to submit a Request for review; or contact IPAM via email ipam@ebrd.com to get guidance and more information on IPAM and how to submit a request.

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Improving Transparency and Effectiveness of Public Procurement in Moldova through Cooperation with Civil Society

Project Description

Enquiries

Business opportunities

General enquiries

Project Description

General enquiries

Access to Information Policy (AIP)

Independent Project Accountability Mechanism (IPAM)