Public Procurement
With today's announcement of his resignation on the back of a corruption probe, the time of Antonio Costa as Portuguese Prime-Minister reached its end. I think it is appropriate to look into his legacy of 8 years as PM in the field of public procurement. The transposition of
Public Procurement
From a new(ish) paper by Francesco Decarolis and Cristina Giorgiantonio on corruption red flags in public procurement: “” As I have said many times, even as a proponent of using most economically advantageous tender criteria in public procurement, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Public Procurement
Having spent most of 2020 criticising the procurement response of the UK Government to the covid-19 pandemic, those decisions are now coming home to roost. Back in February we found out that £8.7B of the £12.1B of PPE purchased in 2020-21 was 'lost' and now we
Public Procurement
It seems that finally the chickens are coming home to roost in what concerns the behaviours of the UK Government last year while using public procurement to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Last week the FT kicked things off with an article that contained a comment from yours truly (and
Public Procurement
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has just published a Review into the risks of fraud and corruption local government procurement in England and Wales. And, frankly, the findings are not great. Here's a particular tidbit about a bugbear of mine: "Efforts to combat fraud
Public Procurement
Late last week Portugal established an exceptional legal framework to deal with the impact arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Decree-Law 10-A/2020 was published in March 13th but its effects are backdated to the date of approval (March 12th) or even earlier for some parts of it. There is
Public Procurement
1. Meet Pelican our new tool for assessing the quality of open contracting data 2. Taming crocodiles in Afghanistan: can open contracting give corruption fighters the upper hand? 3. ‘The changes in the Spanish Public Contracts Law are a backwards step in the fight against corruption’ (Spanish only) 4. South
Links
1. Thousands of contracts in Spain are awarded illegaly due ot fractioning (Spanish) 2. Post-Brexit public procurement rules face a shake-up (gated) 3. EU-Vietnam free trade deal gets green light in EU Parliament trade committee 4. The EU is funding dystopian AI projects 5. Ferries are a ‘long way off
Public Procurement
1. An overview of Internet-of-Things (IOT) procurement for public services 2. Commission issues Regulation on e-Forms for public procurement 3. Shadow of corruption lingers over road construction in Latvia 4. Ranking Tech Brands in European Public Procurement New book published - Cost and EU Public Procurement Law: life-cycle costing for
Links
1. Spanish public procurement oversight body still without means to do its work [Spanish] 2. Trade facts the UK Government has to face 3. Bid rigging conspiracy in railroad electrification works: a very Spanish ‘sainete’ 4. Government urged to ‘buy British’ steel by producers Turkish bidder for British Steel was
Public Procurement
In a great example of using available contract data and building upon other researchers’ work, Silvia Fierascu looked at the risk of state capture in public procurement over 10 years for all the 28 EU Member States: Explore state capture country profiles. The analyses looked at over 2 mil. public
Public Procurement
Long time readers of the blog know where I sit in the divide of more or less data being made available about procurement processes (more, of course). Having said that, I’m not impervious to the competition law arguments regarding the impact more data has on cartel formation/stability. But