“With the entry into force of the Public Procurement Act (PPA2016), on 1 January 2017, the most economically advantageous tender was introduced as the only selection criterion in public procurement processes. Since then, the AmCham members have been monitoring the implementation of the Act and have noticed practices that are neither in the spirit nor the original intention of the lawmaker. Even though we believe that the Act is essentially good, it is necessary to strengthen the capacities and raise the awareness of stakeholders in the public procurement system. With this position paper, AmCham points to such practices and proposes their amendments”, stated Andrea Doko Jelušić, the Executive Director of AmCham, at the meeting.

AmCham believes that non-price criteria in the implementation of the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) should be well-defined because the delivery deadline is currently and predominantly used as the only non-price criterion, which was not the intention of the lawmaker. It is also important to publish data on the performance of the contract more specifically and transparently, including the reasons for the amendment of the contract and the legal basis for the amendments, in a way that allows for a more effective legal protection and a real insight into the legal performance of the contract.

The areas that need to be improved include the harmonization of the Public Procurement Act and special regulations concerning the specification of standards in the procurement documentation (PD), clear interpretation of the provisions on conflict of interest in relation to specific situations, and the need for publishing all prescribed criteria of the most economically advantageous tender in the Record of the opening of the tenders.

Furthermore, it is also necessary to regulate the relationship between the tenderers in the VAT system and those who are exempt from the payment obligation, to improve the automatic withdrawal of mandatory (repetitive) data when applying for public procurement tenders, to prescribe the minimum content, structure and form of a general act, i.e. forms for a simple procurement by amending the PPA 2016 or a separate ordinance, to further strengthen the institute of prior consultation, and finally to define and determine the conclusion of framework agreements in the public procurement more clearly.

The importance of public procurement for the Croatian economy is reflected in the data for the last published Public Procurement Statistics Report for 2018. The total value of public procurement in 2018 amounts HRK 46,633,118.036 without VAT, which represents a share of 14.88% in the GDP for 2018.