Public procurements: A strong system against fraud

Public procurements are often singled out as a sector where corruption and fraud of all kinds thrive. The draft decree aims to bring order through the imple­mentation of enforcement measures. Thus, Article 159 states that ‘‘in the event of presentation of an inaccu­rate sworn statement or falsified documents, or when fraudulent acts, corruption, repeated breaches of wor­king conditions, or serious breaches of commitments have been identified at the expense of a competitor or of the holder, sanctions, without preju­dice, criminal proceedings are star­ted’’.

First by a decision of the minis­ter concerned, as far as Government contracts are concerned, or the minister supervising the State-owned enterprise concerned, after consulting the Natio­nal Commission for Public Procure­ments (CNCP). This involves the tem­porary or permanent exclusion of the competitor from contracts awarded by the services under his authority or the establishment concerned. This exclu­sion measure may be extended to ten­ders issued by all State administrations and State-owned enterprises, by a deci­sion of the Head of Government, on the proposal of the minister concerned, after consulting the National Commis­sion for Public Procurement. Another type of sanction can be taken by deci­sion of the Minister of the Interior after consulting the CNCP. This relates to the temporary or permanent exclu­sion of the competitor concerned from participating in contracts awarded by local authorities. This exclusion may be extended to tenders issued by the national Government and State-owned enterprises following a decision by the Head of Government, based on a pro­posal from the Minister of the Interior and after consulting the National Com­mission for Public Procurements. Fi­nally, the competent authority may pro­nounce the termination of the contract, followed or not by its award, at the ex­pense and risk of the contractor. Excess expenses resulting from the award of the new contract after termination are deducted from the sums which may be due to the defaulting party, without prejudice to the rights to be exercised against it in the event of insufficiency. Any reductions in expenditure remain with the contracting authority. In the three cases provided for, the competitor or the holder to whom the grievances are communicated is invited, before­hand, to present his observations wit­hin the time limit set by the contracting authority. This period may not be less than 15 days. The decisions provided for in the three cases must be substan­tiated and notified to the competitor or defaulting holder and published on the public procurement portal. Further­more, the draft decree on public pro­curement could not ignore technologi­cal developments. Indeed, Article 148 deals with the filing and withdrawal of bids from competitors electronically in the public procurement portal. Thus, the terms and conditions are defined by order of the Minister in charge of Finance, after consultation with the CNCP.

Mohamed CHAOUI