The Commission ordered removal of adverse conditions

The Republic Commission for the Protection of the Rights in Public Procurement Procedures partly annulled the procedure for public procurement of passenger transport services in suburban traffic on the "move 500" in the next ten years, announced by the Public Transport Secretariat of the City of Belgrade.

This decision has annulled one of the conditions for obtaining a job which had a total value estimated at as much as 87 million euros (10,298,863,640 dinars). The Commission made this decision on the basis of a request for the protection of the rights submitted by Transparency Serbia, as a civil supervisor, and the demands of two transport companies were accepted.

Transparency Serbia expresses its satisfaction with this outcome, as it has prevented the damage that could have arisen due to the prescription of discriminatory conditions, the reduction of competition and, consequently, the higher price that would have been paid for the transport of citizens.

We emphasize that the contracting authority warned ten days prior to the submission of a request for protection of rights that it imposed a condition that is not in accordance with the subject of procurement - that carriers must have at this time 55 buses of up to three years old, while at the same time allowing them, during the contract, to use vehicles up to thirteen years old. However, the City Secretariat did not take the opportunity to eliminate this apparent illogicality, so the Republic Commission had to declare the tender documentation.

This failure of the contracting authority postponed the improvement of the transport on these bus lines (503, 504, 511, 512, 521, 531, 532, 533, 534, 551, 552, 553, 91 and 92) for at least two months. In addition, there was a direct damage caused by the City of Belgrade having to pay the costs of the proceedings to the companies that complained in the amount of 676,000 dinars (TS as a civil supervisor did not pay the fee for the claim, nor is entitled to the award).

In addition to our, the Commission for the Protection of Rights has accepted the request of the two bus operators. They complained about the short terms, which could also have a significant impact on the reduction of competition. The Commission assessed that the 52-day deadline was "inappropriate for the time necessary for the acceptance of an acceptable tender" (procurement and preparation of buses in accordance with the conditions of the tender).

The entire solution, as well as the previous documentation related to this public procurement, can be downloaded from the TS website. (documentation set under the heading "Građanski nadzor nad nabavkom usluge prigradskog prevoza u Beogradu – potez 500")