Recall, today at a meeting of the Government, issues of public procurement and procurement in the quasi-public sector were considered. Earlier, Dec. 26, 2018, the Head of State signed the law “On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Public Procurement and Procurement of the Quasi-Public Sector,” which came into effect Jan. 1, 2019.

One of the innovations is that the site of public procurement became paid. According to the Vice Minister of Finance Ruslan Beketayev, setting fees for the services of the public procurement website is a very important aspect. The value of the established price is very available today. It starts from 1 MCI for those companies that will deal with purchases of up to 1 million tenge, and will grow differentially — 10 MCI, 20 MCI, 60 MCI, etc. Accordingly, the amount in those purchases in which companies can participate will also increase.

Beketayev answered the questions of journalists about the purpose of the introduction of this innovation. Firstly, in order to improve the services that the government procurement portal provides today. Secondly, the innovation will cut off unscrupulous participants.

“When a business had the opportunity to participate in procurement for free, we saw that we had about 225 thousand organizations registered on the portal, which in fact did not supply, but simply participated in tenders for some obscure purposes, then wrote complaints accordingly. Today, with the introduction of fees, we see that about 25 thousand companies participate in the procurement. The quality of potential participants today has become much higher and, accordingly, these participants, paying for the portal service, already require the corresponding quality of service. We see behind this the possibility of development and portal solutions,” said Beketayev.

In addition, the new law provides for the repetition of public procurement procedures following the results of failed tenders. The Vice Minister spoke about how this rule affects the timing of procedures and mastering.

According to him, the need for repeat public procurement procedures was due to the fact that the Ministry of Finance as a developer had the task to reduce the number of purchases from one source.

“Having introduced this standard, we believe that the number of purchases from one source should be significantly reduced, but realizing that rather long procedures take an average of 45 days, we have to offer a new way to build state budget funds in time. If earlier it was chosen independently by a state institution, today it is determined by the Ministry of Finance in accordance with the legislation and this method is called ‘With prequalification,” said Beketayev.

Thus, all construction companies will be selected according to the criteria developed by the Ministry of Finance together with the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs. Based on the selection results, a register of qualified suppliers will be created.

“When a state institution wants to announce competitive procedures, say, for construction, it will only set the price parameter. We calculated that, on average, the length of the procedures will be reduced three times — this will be up to 15 days,” said the vice minister.

In case of repeated procedures, even “With prequalification,” the deadlines will be a maximum of 30 days. The main objective of introducing this standard is to reduce purchases from one source. Because this method of procurement is uncompetitive.