Eye on public procurements and public private partnerships in Serbia

Transparency Serbia will closely monitor the process of adoption of new rules in the areas of public procurement and public-private partnerships in Serbia, envisaged for year 2019, in the government internal plans and documents related to the Republic of Serbia EU integration (chapters 23 and 5). The envisaged changes should align Serbian legislation with the latest EU directives, but also remove corruption risks.

TS will also monitor implementation of selected number of public procurement cases and public-private partnerships. The selection will be partly random-based, and partly based on the cases that involve huge amount of funds and public resources or where suspicion on possible wrongdoings is raised in the public. TS will also monitor implementation of selected number of public procurement and PPP contracts, that is currently beyond the scope of the Public procurement i.e. PPP law.

The project will also involve monitoring of the work of key institutions in the field, i.e. Public procurement office, Commission for protection of rights in public procurements, Ministry of finance, public prosecution etc.

Based on the monitoring, Transparency Serbia will initiate procedures about identified irregularities before the competent authorities and inform the public through public statements and communication through social networks. Furthermore, TS will communicate its findings with relevant authorities in Serbia and in EU, and with the rest of civil society organizations, in particular through EU Convent – working group for the chapter 5, that is coordinated by Transparency Serbia.

TS will issue also general recommendations for the improvement of draft legal provisions, that will be discussed with stakeholders on round table debates. Findings of the research will be prepared in bilingual publication in Serbian and English and discussed in the final month of the project on national conference.