📋 Tender Overview
The General Accounting Office of the Republic (GLTD) announces that from today, October 24, 2024, the new interactive website of the Directorate of Public Contracts is available to the public and anyone interested can visit it at www.publicprocurement.gov.cy .
The new website is the core of support for all those involved in the field of public procurement and the main access portal to the important reforms and modern tools promoted by the General Accounting Office of the Republic in the field of public procurement.
These changes are the tip of the spear of a broader strategy to strengthen transparency, efficiency and innovation in the management of public resources, innovation that is a component of the vision of the State Tax Administration as a model and modern Public Organization.
Public procurement is one of the key mechanisms through which the government procures goods and services, invests in infrastructure and promotes the development and well-being of its citizens.
The Accountant General of the Republic, Mr. Andreas Antoniadis, from the first moment of assuming his duties, had initiated the need for reform in the field of public contracts as it had been deemed imperative, since through the friction of the GLTD as the Competent Authority of Public Contracts, often found operational, bureaucratic, procedural and legal obstacles, and delays, which adversely affect the ability of public and wider public sector services to meet their needs in a timely, efficient and effective manner. The lack of transparency often adds to the problems, creating fertile ground for discussions and forming perceptions about public procurement.
A major problem that has emerged concerns the lack of professionalism in both the public and private sectors. To this day, the entire process that accompanies a public contract is treated as an extravagance by most of the officials involved, since it is assigned to them in addition to their daily duties and in particular to services with a lower frequency of needs, which are not sufficient for investment in knowledge and building the necessary skills.
In addition, there is no incentive to innovate and optimize processes, and often in this way the pathologies and weaknesses of the past are maintained for fear of any change. Consequently, the education provided and the support mechanism cannot bring about the change we all desire.
In order to effectively solve the above issues and address the challenges, policies and tools are promoted that will bring about significant changes, modernizing and simplifying the whole framework.
The first and most basic pillar of the reform has to do with investment in personnel and concerns the introduction of professionalism in the field of public procurement. Outsourcing the processes to professionals is essential to ensure that public procurement is handled and managed in the most efficient and transparent manner. For this purpose, we are proceeding with the creation of a new institutional framework that will include the training and certification of professionals involved in public procurement. These professionals are trained in both the theoretical and practical fields, with the aim of acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to manage the legislative framework, procedures and tools in a way that utilizes them flexibly, efficiently, efficiency and transparency.
The Central Purchasing Unit, which has been set up and is operating in the GTL, is staffed by people who are trained as professional buyers, aiming to expand the coverage of central markets with framework agreements, dynamic purchasing systems and electronic purchasing, so that at the push of a button all other services of the public and the wider public sector to be able to satisfy their common needs without having to run other processes of their own. In addition, it will strengthen with professionals the teams set up to manage large projects of strategic importance for the state, while it will also function as a service center for contracting authorities, conducting tenders on behalf of small buyers and services that do not have the know-how of the procedures (e.g. e.g. examination centers to fill positions in the state, air conditioners in schools, flying fire fighting equipment). This approach is expected to involve professional buyers in the most important processes, covering more than 80% of purchases made by the public and the wider public sector. In addition, it will work in practice with major contracting authorities to modernize and enhance the efficiency of their processes.
This specific action is in full progress as the training workshops are completed, which have been attended by 40 public officials, who staff the Competent Authority for Public Contracts and the Central Procurement Unit, as well as large contracting authorities who have to manage a significant number of tenders.
