ArmInfo.Purchases from one supplier, carried out in the state system, account for only 3% of the total volume of state purchases without a tender. This was stated by Deputy Finance Minister Avag Avanesyan, on October 20 at a meeting of the parliamentary commission on economic issues, responding to the remark of the Deputy Chairman of the Commission, MP from the "Civil Contract" Babken Tunyan that due to the increase in the volume of purchases from one supplier, the authorities are accused of corruption.
So, according to the Deputy Minister, the policy of the financial authorities, in general, is aimed at reducing the volume of purchases from one supplier. At the same time, the Deputy Minister urged to take into account the objective necessity of such purchases, for example, in the sector of public services - electricity, gas, etc. There are also purchases that the state is obliged to carry out from a specific manufacturer, this concerns, in particular, the defense sector. "Most of the purchases from one supplier are carried out by the healthcare system, and this is not related to the coronavirus. The fact is that 90% of healthcare services are provided according to the following scheme - regional hospitals are ordered "directly", he explained.
At the same time, as the representative of the Ministry of Finance emphasized, purchases from one supplier make up 40-45% of total purchases, of which 90% fall on the share of the health care system, 5-7% - for public services, the remaining 3% - direct purchases from one supplier " , said Avanesyan.
Earlier, on June 1, Chairman of the Audit Chamber of the Republic Levon Yolyan in parliament during the preliminary discussion of the annual report on the execution of the state budget for 2020, said that in the reporting year, about 40% of contracts concluded by state bodies were made by purchasing from one supplier, which is 4.4% more than in 2019. "Thus, competition in the field of procurement has not changed - the average number of procurement participants at the auction was about 1.7," Yolyan said.
To recall, in March 2018, the then Deputy Minister of Finance Karen Tamazyan said in an interview with ArmInfo that if, compared to 2015, purchases from one supplier in 2016 decreased by more than 2.5 times - 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 purchases from supplier to 5%. In addition, as the Deputy Minister reported, in 2017, purchases were automated from one source, thus depriving the customer of the opportunity to take and carry out purchases 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 ay-o-y terms, 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.
