The last amendment to the Act on Public Procurement in greatly expands the number of contracts to which the regulation will apply. The amendment reduces the limit for small-scale contracts for goods and services from CZK 2 to 1 million and for contracts for construction work in two stages, first by the end of the year 2013 from CZK 6 to 3 million (from 2014 to CZK 1 million). A further extension of the scope of public procurements subject to the regulation is the obligation of the subsidized ordering party to also proceed under this Act in respect of public procurements that are under the above mentioned limits.
Also the obligations of the ordering party have been extended. The ordering party will in particular be obliged to publish the prior notification in which the effectiveness of the contract must be justified as well as the adequacy of the criteria and the commercial and technical conditions of the contract. For significant public contracts, the ordering party must use the person from the list of assessors held by the Ministry for Regional Development.
Further changes that should lead to more transparent public procurements are:
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cancellation of the possibility to gradually limit the number of applicants
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the obligation to cancel the proceedings if there is only one candidate
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increase in fines assessed by the Office for the Protection of Competition
The amendment also ruled out the possibility to set up, as a partial evaluation criterion, the contractual terms and conditions. The Act no longer requires proof of the economic and financial qualifications. These are now replaced with a formal declaration on competence to fulfil the contract.
Source: PwC Czech Republic, Tax, Legal & Business News 5/2012
