ArmInfo.In 2020, about 40% of contracts concluded by state bodies were made by purchasing from one person, which is 4.4% more than in 2019, Chairman of the Audit Chamber of the Republic Levon Yolyan said on June 1 in parliament during a preliminary discussion of the annual report on the execution of the state budget for 2020.
"Thus, competition in the procurement sector has not changed - the average number of procurement participants at the auction was about 1.7," Yolyan said.
In addition, according to the head of the Audit Chamber, a certain setback has been recorded in terms of compliance with the principles of economy. According to Yolyan, the Audit Chamber recorded dozens of inconsistencies in the field of procurement, which were included in the final conclusion.
To recall, in March 2018, then Deputy Minister of Finance Karen Tamazyan said in an interview with ArmInfo that if, compared to 2015, in 2016 procurement from one person decreased by more than 2.5-fild from 21.2 billion drams or 18, 3% to 6.6 billion drams and 7.2%, then in 2017 the indicator decreased to 5.7%. In 2018, the department pledged to reduce procurement from one person to 5%. In addition, as the Deputy Minister reported, in 2017, procurement was automated from a single source, thus depriving the customer of the opportunity to take and carry out procurement from one person. For this, it was decided to hold very short, one-day tenders, where the average number of procurement participants at the auction was about 1.1.
In April 2019, answering a question from ArmInfo, Head of the Procurement Policy Department of the Ministry of Finance of Armenia Sergey Shakhnazaryan said that the Ministry of Finance had worked towards increasing competition in the system. As a result, according to him, the average number of procurement participants increased: if in 2016 the average number of participants was 3.3 (applications for participation in one tender), then on an annualized basis it was expected that the figure would be about 3.5 - 4. It was noted that in international practice, an indicator in the range of 3-4 is considered average, normal, 4-5 - good, which indicates confidence in the procurement system in the country, as well as the establishment of equal competitive conditions
