Share of procurement without tenders makes up 70% of public procurement

ArmInfo. 70% of the public procurement falls on the share of procurement without tenders, Artak Manukyan, economist, public procurement expert at the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center, said at a press conference on March 23, when presenting the results of the analysis of state tenders for 2015.

He said practice shows that no more than 69% of the funds provided for public procurement are spent within nine months. "The remaining 30-40% of the public procurement funds - if unspent - must be transferred to the state budget. So, "the customer" eventually seeks to acquire something. As a rule, this contains corruption risks," Manukyan said. According to the Armenian legislation, the preference is given to the tender purchase of goods, and the share of purchases from one economic entity shall not exceed 2- 3% of total, according to the World Bank criteria. "Meanwhile, the procurement without tenders amounted to 183 bln AMD, or 70% of the total amount (nearly 262 bln AMD)," he said. 

Transparency International (TI) is a non-governmental organization that monitors and publicizes corporate and political corruption in international development.