“8,698 anti-competitive violations were detected in public procurement in 2022” – Competition Committee

During 2022, 8,698 cases of anti-competitive act were identified in the course of 6,201 tenders by state and corporate customers. The Committee for Developing Competition and Protection of Consumer Rights informed Kun.uz about this.

According to the report, analysis of 31,926 competitive sales (tender) conducted by state and corporate customers by the end of 2022 was carried out. Among them, 23,757 of the 91,016 electronic tenders conducted in 2022 (that is, 26.1%) were studied remotely by the committee. 

As a result of the analysis, 8,698 cases of anti-competitive behavior were identified in the course of 6,201 sales by state and corporate customers.

The following measures were taken against the detected violations of the law:

•  Referrals for legal assessment of 5,507 cases of violations of the law were submitted to law enforcement and other bodies;
•  235 cases of law violations were voluntarily eliminated by customers;
•  620 cases were initiated by the committee, 530 instructions were given and 412 officials were held administratively responsible for 2,956 cases.

According to the report of the committee, proposals have been developed for the further improvement of the procedures for the organization and implementation of e-public procurement in the field of construction, as well as for the calculation and maintenance of the rating of project-search and construction-contract organizations, based on the criteria that exclude the intervention of the human factor.

According to the new regulation:

•  the activity of the purchase commission has been canceled, and its function will be performed automatically by the platform;
•  a system has been introduced that automatically identifies and eliminates the nature of mutual affiliation between the state customer and the contracting organization, as well as the contracting organizations;
•  a rating system integrated into the databases of state agencies without the intervention of the human factor has been introduced.

It was announced earlier that it is planned to exclude dishonest contractors from public procurement for 2 years.

It envisages the formation of a register of dishonest performers, the regulation of inclusion and removal of dishonest performers from the register.

Participant, winner or executor of public procurement is included in the register of dishonest executors based on the decisions of the court, the commission for reviewing complaints in the field of public procurement, the Ministry of Economy and Finance.